Salina Cruz, Oaxaca - Mexico Assessments

Sunday Sept. 25, 2011.-

We started traveling to Salina Cruz about 6am and drove for about 285 kilometers and arrived to Salina Cruz around 3pm.
Once in Salina Cruz, we proceeded to check in at Hotel Lena Real, unpack our stuff and were met but Gaspar Castilla immediately in the lobby of the Hotel to start talking about the scope of our visit and plan some activities for the rest of the day.  We left the Hotel to visit a couple of neighborhoods in Salina Cruz which are in desperate need of safe water  but which are not part of  the current assessment and could be considered in a future safe water project for the city of Salina Cruz.
The current assessment will gather information to propose installation of an LWTS System for each of 4 school districts in the city which comprise a total of about 24 schools.  These Systems will provide Safe Water for Cooking and Drinking to all school children plus the population in each of the districts.
The city of Salina Cruz has a total population of about 86,000 people and about 84 neighborhoods, according to our initial findings and talking with Lic. José Enrique González Ramírez, who is the assistant to the Municipal President (Mayor) of Salina Cruz.  This means there is a need or potential for a comprehensive safe water project to provide access to all the population if a sponsored was found, and it could from 20 LWTS Systems up to 80 or so!  This is because the city is undergoing a current water crisis and there is no other plan to  provide access to safe water for the city.
The plan during out 3-days visit to Salina Cruz are to start with a water sample collection early Monday to perform a bacteriological water analysis for each of the proposed sites.  Start collecting additional information to be included in our report from each of the neighborhoods.

Monday Sept. 26, 2011.-

This morning we (Leonel Ayestas, Gaspar and me...) started to visit the several communities/neighborhoods that good Rotarian friend, Gaspar Castilla, has in mind to have access to safe water for cooking and drinking in the urban area of Salina Cruz Municipality, Sate of Oaxaca - Mexico.

This first day of our assessment visit, we made a quick tour to get to know the sites and leaders from each of the 7 sites to propose to The Rotary Foundation (TRF - www.rotary.org) for funding through The Rotary e-Club of Latinoamerica (www.recl.org), Gaspar Castilla's (https://www.facebook.com/GCastilla) Rotary Club, as well as to collect source water samples for chemical and bacteriological analysis.

First, we visited the emerging neighborhood of  Colonia Piedra Cuachi (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/PiedraCuachi/), which is a new settling still in process, with 320 lots and 23 existing houses and families already living here in very poor conditions, with no water service, no sanitation, no electricity and so on.  We talked with leaders and some settlers about the possibility for a Safe Water project for them in the near future since, due to size, they are not eligible for an LWTS at this moment.  We also collected a water sample from a well/spring they use to get water for their daily use in order to make a water analysis for contaminants, we will post a photo of this results in a future revision to this post after the normal incubation period.  We did the same for Colonia Cerro Alto (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/ColCerroAlto/), which is not one of the four proposed recipient communities as well in this initial proposal.  (We actually visited these two communities on Sunday afternoon with Gaspar and a group of his Rotaract Club)

Then, we visited the community of Agencia San Antonio Monterrey (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/AgenciaSnAntonioMonterrey/), specifically to talk with the Deputy Director of the Instituto Tecnologico de Salina Cruz (http://www.itsalinacruz.edu.mx/web/index.php) and the Municipal Agent of the community.  This is actually One of the Four originally proposed sites by The Rotary e-Club of Latinoamerica to received a Safe Water project.  We discussed with the above leaders the scope of the project as well as the responsibilities and benefits for each involved party and the community beneficiaries.  We also collected a water sample for the respective analysis and will be providing those results in this post later on...

Following, we continued our preliminary visit to Colonia Guadalupe (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/ColGuadalupe/), near downtown Salina Cruz.  This is One more of the four proposed communities for safe water in SC. We met with both morning and afternoon Principals, as well as Parent's Association, of the local primary school in this  neighborhood to also talk to them about the scope and general benefits of this potential safe water project.  The attending leaders agreed about the benefits of having a project like this and committed to calling for a town meeting in a couple of days so we can talk directly to the villagers about the project.  A water analysis result will also be presented shortly in this post.

We continued our visit to Agencia Salinas del Marquez (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/SalinasMarquez/), another one of the four proposed sites for safe water in SC.  where we also collected a water sample for analysis and talked to the President of the Parent's Association.  They were invited to a town meeting with the Municipal President of SC on Tue Sept. 27 where we'll make a thorough presentation about the proposed project.

After this, we visited Barrio San Pablo (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/BoSanPablo/), the last of the four sites proposed by The Rotary e-Club of Latinoamerica for a safe water project in SC.  A water sample was also collected and a visit and talk with the Principal of the local primary school was held.

To finalize our visits for today, we paid a visit to Colonia Hidalgo Oriente (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SalinaCruzOaxaca/ColHidalgoOriente/), where we met with the Director of the Centro de Bachillerato Tecnologico del Istmo, a potential site to build and enclosure for the LWTS System.  This is another potential site for safe water for a future initiative since it is not included in the original FOUR that will be proposed this time.  A water sample form the local 6-meter deep well was also collected.

We finalized the day by carrying out the water analysis at the Hotel and making this notes.  We'll continue with the assessment of these communities until gathering and completing all required information in order to present a good proposal and budget to TRF in order to secure funding for all these very needed people in Salina Cruz.

It's 12:45 am in Salina Cruz and I have to get some rest... Many Blessings to all!
( I still have to send a couple of of emails though...)

Tuesday Sept. 27, 2011.-

We prepared to have meetings with leaders of Agencia Salinas del Marquez, what we did in the morning in order to explain the project and ask for them a Pre-Agreement stating they would accept the conditions to have a Safe Water Project in their community to serve not just the school but their entire community as well.

The Safe Water Commission formed in Agencia Salinas del Marquez

Same thing was done in Col. San Pablo where we also met with local teachers and leaders of the community.  They finally agreed to the conditions to have a Self-sustainable Safe Water system in the community and signed a Pre-Agreement with WMI/Rotary.

Meeting with the Safe Water Commission of Bo. San Pablo

In the evening we had another similar meeting in Agencia San Antonio Monterrey with the whole community, leaders and staff of the local college to also explain and obtain a signed Pre-Agreement with them as part of the Assessment for this project.

Safe Water Commission formed in Agencia San Antonio Monterrey, Salina Cruz, Oaxaca - Mexico

Wednesday Sept. 28, 2011.-  
We visited the community of Playa Brasil with Gaspar Castilla in order to check and inspect an old water treatment system installed by the local physical Rotary Club of Salina Cruz some 3 years ago, which had been idle for almost two and half years now.  We found out the pump was out of order for some years, leaving the community with no safe water and no assistance, until about a month ago, when they came to pick up the pump and took it to Salina Cruz for repair.
We visited the Col. Guadalupe to talk with the teachers and some other people about the commitment letter and approved Pre-Agreement, which they got for us.
Then we visited the Municipal Health Director, Dra. Miroslava Cabrera Solórzano, to present the Safe Water Project for Cooking and Drinking and also to request her assistance in providing the health indicators in order to include in our assessment.  She welcomed us to her office but offered to provide that info lo earlier than two weeks since they do not have it available but will try to arrange it for us.
To complete our activities in Salina Cruz, we concluded with a town meeting with local authorities and leaders from all four communities visited in the Town Hall.  We provided an audio-visual presentation about the Project to all of them and gave them a chance to ask any questions about the System, the Project and the Assessment process.




Thursday Sept. 29, 2011.-  
We left Salina Cruz back to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas after a hard work with Gaspar Castilla for the past 3 days.  On our way to Chiapas, we were joined by Gaspar to the village of San Juan Viejo (Niltepec, Oaxaca) in order to make a short assessment of this community's water situation.
During our visit to this community (http://s1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee458/maihonduras/SanJuanViejo-NiltepecOaxaca/), we found they are only about 15 families and drink untreated water underground water from shallow wells they have.  We took some samples to analyze and also recommended to them to start using Chlorine to treat the water they use for drinking and cooking because they have many septic holes all around the community and it is by sure their water is full of fecal coliforms and other bacteria.



We also recommended providing them some kind of 20-litter bottles/buckets with lids/taps for them to hold their drinking water as well as some liquid Chlorine and droplets to start treating and keeping their water.

After this visit we headed to Chiapas, where we got about 3.45pm/

Note: Complete sets of photos for each site visited during this assessment can be found in this link:
http://photobucket.com/salinacruz