water purification project

Blue skies this morning! Of course, most mornings start out nice and cheery and the afternoons and evenings end in a downpour and thunder/lightning storms. I've learned that I should get to the University early (even though most of my classes don't start until 4pm or later) to read in the library to avoid walking in the lightning storms on my way to school. Either way, it's definitely an instant coffee and Shakira kind of morning.

I thought I'd mention my activities on Saturday, because I accompanied my Rotary club all day on their mission to install water purification systems in 6 schools in a nearby rural zone. I got up really early and met my Rotarian at his (pent)house in the North of the city, and we got in the car and drove out to the zone where Mindo is- it was about a 1.5+ hour drive to get there from the semi-north of Quito.

So we got out to this hosteria in the zone, which was our base- we ate breakfast there, and "my" Rotarian's wife and I bonded by eating more than our allotted empanadas (I LOVE empanadas de verde! They're made with green bananas (not green as in unripe- as in, starchy and not sweet) with cheese inside, delish) and drinking juice (another thing I love- jugo de tomate de árbol- tree tomato juice. Definitely NOT comparable to v8!). The Rotarians were divided into groups so that each group would visit a school to formally present the water purification system. These systems had already been installed and were properly working- this was mostly a formal ceremony that we did.

My Rotarians and I visited a secondary school (6th-12th grade) that was about 25 minutes from the hosteria base. There were probably 90-120 students that were there, who all came out on a Saturday for the ceremony, which was impressive. I was shocked by the military style of this rural school- all students wore uniforms (white blouses, grey skirts, high heels for girls, white button-down shirt and grey slacks with a tie for boys), and they stood at attention and even marched when the director asked them to. The principal said some words, the president of the parents committee said some words, there was a representative from the Ministry of Education and he said some words, and the student body president said (like, 7) words. Oh, and of course the Rotarians said some words, asking the community to take care of the system, etc. Also, there were these leaf cutter ants carrying pieces of leaves from the very nearby forest into their anthole, which was right in front of me and was perhaps more interesting than the speeches. Sweet!





The water project is pretty important- most homes, stores, etc. in the region don't have access to drinkable water, so parasites are a pretty big deal- you see some kids with inflated stomachs etc. as a result. Apparently some Ministry of Health officials have come in and done anti-parastical treatments, but not all families remember to/can send their kids in for the series of treatments, so it's not always very effective, and of course when you're drinking untreated water, even if you've gotten rid of your current parasites, you're just going to be exposed to more. So having drinking water at the school (which seemed like it was very much a community meeting place) seemed like a good project.




In other interesting facts, I learned from the rep from the Ministry of Education that in this zone, parents are paid a monthly stipend if their kids go to school as an incentive to not keep them at home, working. I didn't realize that the zone was that impoverished, or that there were that many economic activities for kids to help out in- as far as I could tell, the zone seemed to be mostly based on eco-tourism and maybe some virgin forest exploitation for the wood. The area was really beautiful- semi tropical with lots of greenery and flowers around.





The parents committee made us all a nice lunch (caldo de gallina- chicken soup- not like a brothy soup, there's an entire chicken leg in the soup) and I ate mote and yucca- both very starchy (mote is like barley or boiled wheat). We handed out sandwiches that we had made for the students, along with a cereal bar and soda (the irony of the fact that we had just installed drinkable water and that we were handing out soda to these kis was not lost on me).

In all, it was a very useful project although I felt a bit uncomfortable being there for only a formal ceremony suggested by the Rotarians themselves.