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
