Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drink

Part 1 of a series

I am back in Guatemala for the seventh time since 1992. I expanded my travels this summer to include a trip to visit the Ixil people in the mountainous Quiché region and visit a Rotary International potable water project. The Ixil are the Mayas who suffered greatly during the 36-year civil war and now face intense water insecurity issues plus a long list of social ills.

Traveling inside third world countries challenges your patience, tolerance and comfort level for a  lot of reasons. However, the head-slapping reality check last weekend when I joined a typical morning commute of four frightening hours to the mountain city of Chel, was that this was the daily grind for many Guatemalans — four hours to work, then four more to go home. 

They do it on empty stomachs. They do it on very little sleep. They are often malnourished and sick with diarrhea. Many do it while working for as little as $1 a day — when they find work. Most importantly, they work long hours, raise their children, care for their parents and themselves, all while dealing with an appalling absence of clean drinking water. 

I recently returned to my comfy homestay in Xela from a visit to a  potable water project funded by a Washington state Rotary Club and coordinated by The Ripple Effect in Chel. I was accompanied by Sergio Chicol, an associate from the Mayan Families Foundation, an NGO in Panajachel, where I’m in volved in several other projects. Sergio is a Kakchiquel Maya who speaks five languages and was a forced teenage conscript during the war. 

When, after two hours of bone-jarring bumps without benefit of shock absorbers, our “chicken bus” finally rounded the last of numerous cliffside hairpin turns and Chel came into view, my spirit lifted as if we were rolling into  the fictional Shangri-La. 

Finally, I would get off  that bus!

Our intentions were two-fold — to meet The Ripple Effect founder Michael Ewens and participate in a potable-water project installation; and equally important, to evaluate the possibility for Sergio to expand his coverage area for Vitamin Angels, a California-based vitamin distributor for which he is a field representative.  The chronic malnutrition rate among Maya children is 70 percent.

Chel’s remote location behind two mountains limited our visit to two full days of travel, with only 18 hours spent visiting the project. Ewens was a carpenter in Washington state for 30 years, but now lives in Chel full time. He chose the location in 2007 precisely because it was so far “off the grid” and difficult to access, but more importantly because it is an area that is not currently being served by any other non-governmental organizations, aka charities. We hope that situation will change.

What impressed me most about Ewens is that he is not running a charity. Unlike many foundations in Guatemala and elsewhere, participants in his projects must contribute to the construction or to the cost. He does not want to foster  a “handout” culture. Ewens intends to live out his life in one of the villages outside Chel, and it appears that he will be very busy with the many projects of The Ripple Effect. He is very firm with participants that nothing is free, and with all of his various projects, which include agriculture and care of farm animals, residents must demonstrate that they have already put in the effort  required to rise to the next stage of each project.

Chel is part of the municipality of Chajul (the city where I left paved roads behind) and is in a river valley and surrounded by 13 villages. We saw only the first of the several stages required to upgrade the water challenges faced by the village of  Encuentros.

 There are many towns throughout Guatemala that face various challenges accessing potable water — including no electricity, no available clean springs, no uncontaminated uphill brooks and lack of education and literacy. The annual rainy season has shortened dramatically in recent years.

Encuentros experiences all of the above. It is a 90-minute 4x4 pickup truck drive uphill beyond Chel on rutted, unmaintained roads. Thus, they are far from services that even Chel has access to: electricity, a school, water power, mobile Internet, public transportation, etc. 

 We arrived in Encuentros late morning with 114 Q-beta water filters ­— one for each family. The men (women and children were hiding when we arrived) were quite circumspect at first. However, we were eventually invited to visit several homes and their humble water collection efforts. Water filters were distributed to each family, instructions were explained verbally. The illiteracy rate here is about 75 percent and only 1 percent graduate from high school. Fortunately, there were visual instructions on each filter.

 A potable water project with limitations such as those in Encuentros means it will be a rainwater catch system. Rainwater, which is unpredictable even during the rainy season, will be caught from the roofs, then channeled through pipes into large, black plastic barrels. That water must be treated with chlorine to control bacteria. Future maintenance must be done by the residents, including monitoring and cleaning the filter cartridges.

Part 2 next time.

Jim Britt, who lives in Salisbury, is a member of the Salisbury Rotary Club and will be the featured speaker at its Sept. 8 luncheon at noon at Geer Village in North Canaan. The public is welcome. To make a reservation, call Mona’s cell phone at 860-248-0867. There is a $15 fee for lunch. Email Jim at jim.britt@yahoo.com.