For six years we have visited the village of Los Encuentros. Our first visits were in 2009 when we started working on a water project in the Neighboring village of Nuevo Puntos. We met with the village leaders and tried to include them in the project but the spring for Nueve Puntos was too far away and too small for both villages. Both villages were basically drinking water from mud puddles. I can still remember crying when we had finally exhausted all options and had to separate the two villages leaving Los Encuentros behind. We were in the mountains in the bottom of a gully looking at tiny spring that would barley provide water for one home. "It just won't work, but we will kept trying" I promised the four men with me that day.
I hate promises like that. They can hang in the air like a noose waiting to be completed.
The beginning of the trail to Nueve Puntos starts in Los Encuentros and all the materials for the project would arrive on truck and pass through the village on its way on up the mountain. It took a year to finish the water project in Nueve Puntos and then we built a small school, then a clinic. Over the years blankets, clothes, garden fencing, all would pass through the village as we worked further up the mountain.
The problem was there was no spring surrounding the Los Encuentros. We searched for miles but the only water source was the rain. It was too expensive to buy water tanks for the 70 homes and plastic tanks only have a life span of ten years. The size of the village made it hard to bring in general aid like blankets and there was no funding for a water project like they needed. In six years the only work we did was distributing sheep in 2013. Many times I was asked if there was a solution to their need for water but never once did I hear a complaint.
As an organization we worked hard in other villages. We grew but we didn't forget. This year we re-enter the village with water filters and hand made quilts.
A WATER PROJECT
Thirty dump trucks of sand and gravel have been moving up the mountain along with 10 trucks of cement and rebar. The road up the mountain still demands respect but this year for the first time since its construction repair work was done to smooth out the ruts and holes. For three months two excavators worked on the repairs and as they finished we received the final approval for a Rotary water Grant for Los Encuentros and the village of Jua. We would build 70 water tanks, one for each home, and connect them by gutters to the roofs. The rain water collected would be clean and protected in sealed tanks. The solution had finally arrived and we jumped right in!
Simple guides like this pole frame used to place the re bar were made for everything
We grouped five families together at a time so we would have a good enough sized work force. When we would pour the wall even the women would pitch in. Our production is faster than I expected and we are completing five tanks every seven days.
It is hard work. This man is close to my age and the work was taxing us late one afternoon. I am constantly learning Ixil and he taught me a new phrase this day. "Na Sa'e' Saq'i'y" -- It literally translates - It wants your life --- the meaning-- it take effort. I like that. To understand that there is a sometime costly exchange to get from point "A" to point "B" but if it is worth it go for it.
Thanks Rotary Gig Harbor. By the dry season next March the village of Los Encuentros will be drinking good clean water and we can leave the mud puddles to the ducks.
