Water systems – Costa Jill

Nicaragua – The Good, Bad and Ugly

p3020169-300x225-2735749 — Riding the roads in the back of the truck

A few statistics on Nicaragua:

· $1028 – Second lowest per capita income in the Americas

· 48% of population live below poverty line

· 30 – 40% of homes have a woman head of household

· President – Daniel Ortega – Sandanista Party – for the 2^nd time.

Two of our traveling companions, one from the U.S. and one from Nicaragua, are political history buffs. During our many hours of traveling to and from our survey sites we had plenty of time for lively, interesting, informative discussions on the history, culture and politics of Nicaragua; the latter being incendiary, difficult, multi-faceted, dangerous, murky. What’s the truth? I’m not sure. I can only give you my observations.

p3010116-300x225-9623331 — Fighting rooster atop ring-legal in Nicaragua

In the isolated countryside, life goes on as it has for 100’s of years. There’s no time for anything but surviving in the simplest manner. Lack of money, jobs and transportation keeps subsistence farming alive. The simple homes of either handmade clay bricks or gleaned wood are clean.

Our survey was to inspect the condition and use of the latrines (installed in the last two years) and the older water systems in the area surrounding El Sauce. If the results are good, the Water for People funding will continue. And they were.

· Almost all households were headed by women.

· All agreed to allow us to view the latrines and answer questions about use and cleanliness.

· All latrines were clean and most decorated.

· All the people we talked to were friendly, open and educated in water use.

· No households had indoor water or plumbing.

p3010071-300x225-2417365 — Public school-one teacher for 150 kids

The exception was in public institutions – both schools and health clinics. The older latrines, not installed by El Porvenir and WFP, were in bad condition, generally not functioning. There were few if any supplies or books. The buildings were rundown and in need of repair. When I asked about the sad conditions, I was told that education and health care were free, but the government “won’t put its money where its mouth is.” And “Since they’re “free”, the government won’t accept private funds when offered.” What?

p30201951-300x225-2139093 — Unusable school latrines

When we returned to Managua, the political center of the country, the contrast was extreme. Nothing like the bucolic countryside filled with simple hard-working people. That’s the next and last story from Nicaragua.

Living in the Past – El Sauce, Nicaragua

p3020168-300x225-5048282 — El Porvenir Staff, El Sauce

Jimmy stays with us at the only hotel in town, El Blanco, run by a Katherine Zeta Jones look-alike, with an added Latin American plumpness. Elvis lives in El Sauce and is finally able to go home. I decide to enter the data from the previous afternoon and give thanks that Jimmy is staying in the next room and comes to my call with help on the myriad extra steps one must take on the PC I’ve borrowed from his office.

p4020106-300x225-1213653 — Mercedes in her kitchen

We start the morning at the El Porvenir staff’s favorite restaurant, Mercedes’ Kitchen, and that’s all it really is. She opens her home and we enter the kitchen and look in all the pots to decide what we want. Of course there’s gallo pinto (a mix of yesterday’s red beans and rice) that is the mandatory filler for a hard day’s work, then eggs, fruit, tortillas, and meat. Coffee is drunk short, sweet and dark, not like in my adopted country of Costa Rica where it’s big and creamy with milk.

p4020114-300x225-2549994 — Water Source, Rope Well

Elvis handles the truck like a professional semi driver and takes us immediately off the paved road into billows of dust and heat. We split up on gender lines: the men and Bob survey most of the water sources, both springs and wells, the women and myself do most of the household surveys. In each small community the houses are clustered 6 – 12 together in the drought-ridden countryside for both family and economic support. They tend domestic animals, small gardens, children, hornos (outdoor bread baking ovens). We are always invited in to sit on the plastic chairs they stack in the corner and use only if a visitor arrives. A hammock is slung across the bare but cleanly swept dirt floor, and the prized, nod-to-technology TV winks from the corner. All washing and most of the cooking is done outside. And in every yard, usually decorated and always clean, is the recently installed vented latrine surrounded by grazing animals and a healthy garden.

p3010110-300x225-6639730 — Pastoral with Latrine

p2280055-300x225-2668513 — Horno - bread oven

How can I ask these humble strangers from a simpler time the most difficult questions on the survey? “May I see your latrine? Do all of you use it? When do you wash your hands? They may be simple but they’re not stupid. Find out next posting along with the other hard questions I must ask in this volatile Sandanista powered country – their politics.

The Survey Begins – Nicaragua

p2271305-300x225-8635113 — Oxen carrying firewood

Up with the dawn – as usual – Bob and I walk the waking streets of Dario. See it cool and quaint. Men with oxen make their rounds delivering lena (stove wood) gleaned from all nearby bushes and trees, for the breakfast fires. No wonder there’s a sparse treeless environment surrounding every village. Women with children carry straw baskets on their heads filled with the day’s wares; fruits and vegetables, fresh baked bread and rozquitos (flour cakes filled with cane syrup), pork and chicken; looking for the perfect location to set up for the day.

p2271307-300x225-8811436 The small colonial houses are set close together on the decorative cobblestone streets, like almost all the streets we travel that are not dirt or newly paved asphalt. As the doors open to the morning we get a voyeur’s glimpse of life inside: beautiful antique tile floors, sparse stucco walls with an occasional painting of an old sailing ship or decorated ancestor, a pharmacy selling everything from hula hoops and junk food to drugs and bottled water.

The heat of the day is not upon us yet. Give it a couple more hours. It’s the dry season or verano, a good time to be checking water levels and functioning of the wells put in by El Porvenir. We meet up the our El Porvenir crew at the favorite local restaurant down the street from our hostel Seeds of Learning. Elaine gives me ‘a lick and a promise’ on the alien aspects of PC’s and Excel. Both totally frustrated, we hope it’ll all work out in the end, when we must post our data.

We switch vehicles. Elaine, John, two larger members of El Porvenir, and the luggage are crammed into a tiny Suzuki and off to Wiwili in the far mountainous reaches of the country bordering Honduras. Elvis drives our truck, Jimmy shotgun, Bob and I on the benches in the tarp-covered back with the gear. “Three hours to El Sauce with a stop in between to do our first surveys. I’m ready,” I’m psyched.

p2280027-225x300-7335513

“Yea. And we’re lucky. It’s cloudy and breezy,” smiles Bob. We’ve checked the weather of our destination on line and it’s one of the hottest driest areas of Nicaragua. We leave the paved road to the isolated communities of Caracol and Monte Grande. Jimmy and I do the household surveys in the former, while Bob and Elvis check the water systems in the latter. Slow going until we get our ‘sea legs’. The process goes like this: An El Porvenir staff member introduces us and asks if they will answer some questions about the functioning of their water systems and/or latrines. They all agree and have no problem letting us check them, take GPS readings and photos. Though the families are poor with few amenities, they seem content. Most have animals and small gardens surrounding their neat simple handmade brick or wood homes. I thoroughly enjoy getting to know them and seeing how they live. It’s like subsistence farming communities of years ago.

p22800051-300x225-8473267

We finish by late afternoon, still under a rare cloudy sky, and head for our final destination of El Sauce. The sky darkens. Thunder rumbles. Sheets of rain slash through the slits in the tarp. We’re soaked, and it doesn’t stop until we pull into town. Jimmy can’t believe it. “This is the dry season. It never rains this time of year.”

“Guess we’re just lucky.” I sigh, exhausted, again. We arrive at the only hotel in town, get dry and fall into bed.

Nicaragua with Water for People and El Porvenir

p2261266-300x225-6816418 — Hotel Las Mercedes

Immediately upon arriving three hours late in the capital city of Managua, Bob and I get tremors of third world country glitches. The chip installed in my phone doesn’t work, but it’s a nice relief. The representative of our hotel tells us we have no reservations, but we check in anyway. We don’t actually meet up with anyone until the next morning. Everybody’s late. After breakfast Bob and I meet and greet the other two World Water Corps, Water for People volunteers. Elaine, our team leader from Denver, is an EPA employee who lives close to the home office. John is pipe fitter from Wisconsin Rapids, WI. His Midwest accent brings back sentimental memories of my Milwaukee heritage.

p2271301-300x221-2753149 — Dario, Nicaragua

p2261291-300x225-2861431 — Public Admin. Dario

We’re off to our training session with El Porvenir (the future) in the quaint colonial town of Dario, named for the famous Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario. The group has been working hand-in-hand with WFP in Nicaragua for the last two years, though they have been in existence for more than twenty, bringing water and sanitation to isolated people in the rural campo. We split up, half in the El Porvenir tarp-covered truck and half (Bob and I included) in the tiny air-conditioned car. The meeting gives us an introduction to both groups and their on-going and future projects and our modus operandi, monitoring the water and sanitation systems already in place.

Our day drags on, as Latin American meetings do. Our American counterpart, Elaine has lots to present. She has been trained by the Water for People staff and told to pay great attention to detail since this is the first monitoring survey since WFP joined with El Porvenir. Future donations depend on it. Everything must be translated into Spanish or English and that doubles the time. After numerous breaks for meals, GPS training, computer problems, etc. we are in session for 12 hours! I’m exhausted. Our expert translator, Jimmy begins to lose his voice by the end of the day (rather night). Is this any indication of how long our surveys will last?

p2261285-300x225-9302288 — Training-Fermin, Cesar, Jimmy, Elaine

Elaine asks if she can train me on the PC and Excel before we retire for the night. I had planned to bring my Mac computer, but at the last minute find out the GPS stuff can’t be downloaded to Mac, and being a writer, not an accountant, I’ve never experienced the wonders of Excel. I’m so tired my eyes are crossing, and ask for a good night’s rest. “Can’t we do this in the morning?”

“Well, you know that John and I are going to Wiwili and it’s a seven hour drive. I’d rather do it tonight.”

“I’m an old morning person and my brain is mush. How about 6 or 7 am? So you can still make it to Wiwili before dark.”

But she’s a night person and only in her 30’s. “I can’t make it that early.” She frowns, “how about 8 am?” Agreed.

p2261298-300x225-1847661 — Seeds of Learning

We’re hauled in the back of the truck, like cattle to market, to our hostel for the night, a quaint humble place with a big surprise inside. Named Seeds of Learning, its main raison d’etre is as a children’s library and learning center. Started twenty plus years ago by an old gringo and his Nica wife, it even includes a sewing room with machines to teach the women a viable craft.

We all double up in the rooms and fall exhausted into our dreams of what tomorrow will bring.