Getting It Done

The Japanese cemetery at Cerro de Oro

The complete Eco- Bano rehabilitation

Two completed Cocinas with Will Jensen in Quilmana

Another Regional Meeting of the 30 or so PCVs in the “Licah” (Lima-Ica-Huancavelica) regions. We meet once a month to swap info and share some together time. This meeting was in Ica – not my favorite Peruvian city. About ¾ of town is “off-limits” for security reasons. The only respite from the brutal sun and heat is the extraordinary ice cream (gelato) parlor in the Plaza – pecan is emerging as my go-to favorite, with coconut and chocolate close behind. I presented my “Bicycle 101” PowerPoint and updated the crew on recent bike policy changes. These will mostly affect the incoming PCVs, however a little extra training in safety, riding and maintenance can’t hurt.

After the meeting, I toured the Maestro hardware store nearby, which is as good as any Home Depot or Lowe’s in the US. Some folks window shop in clothing or shoe stores – my favorites have always been hardware and electronics stores. (plus the AC felt really good) I found some nifty “biodigesters”, pre-fabbed from plastic roto-tanks. While these are really septic tanks, they could easily be adapted to regular biodigester service – quick and easy installation. If you live near one of these super-stores.

Two earthquakes hit Peru this week : a 4.4 located just offshore of Ancash (where I’m headed on Sunday) and a larger 5.1 about 70 miles SSW, near Ica. The 4.4 happened at midnight while I slept and had potential for tsunami, but none reported. The 5.1 was a long one – something like 30-40 seconds. Everything rattled and vibrated, much like a large freight train going by next door. After years in SoCal and feeling 7 or 8 here in Peru in the last 6 months, I’m pretty used to it, though there is always the wondering when they start, of just how far they will go. The big fear, of course, is for the “big” ones (over 7) that do damage to the poorly built houses here. Even worse, would be a large quake off-shore, on the huge fault-line / tectonic plate ridge. This could cause tsunami wave, several of which have caused devastation in the past. My friends at the beach would be wiped out, though I’m up 20M and would be quite safe in San Luis. However, if I’m working at my sites out at the beach and we get a good shake, I’m spinning off on my bike AFAP.

I had a sweet visit this morning from one of the kids who built a Tippy-Tap at my Health Fair booth. She had taken hers home and painted it with markers and wanted to show it off. She was also wondering if she could get some soap and paper towels, which I was delighted to provide. After that response, I need to go to the schools and do some classes. So VERY delighted that at least one child really got into the Tippy-Tap idea. I haven’t really gotten into teaching in the schools much – most of my work has been with adults in the field, which is my comfort zone. Time to step out-side for a bit, though I’ll still shun the teaching English gig that is popular with many PCVs.

Back in my comfort zone, I completed the first Eco-Bano rehab, which included all the essentials for the fully functioning "Compleat Composting Bano”: Slick new plastic toilet seat, water bottle to flush urine tube, bin to hold ash/lime drying material, stick for adjusting poop distribution in hole and new door handles. And what good bano would be complete without every PCVs favorite accessory - the Tippy-Tap for hand-washing after toilet use. In addition, I re-educated the family in proper use and put a reminder poster on the door. Then, we cleaned out the old compost, which was really nice stuff and spread it around some plants by the house. Total cost was about US$3. I’m hoping this project will be funded by the milk company Gloria, which buys milk from all the farmers on the beach. Plan is to re-hab 40-50 of these well-built composting toilets, which have fallen into dis-use for various reasons, mostly rusted bolts and hinges.

Had a nice LONG walk with Fernando out to San Pedro, my second most distant annex. I tried to borrow a bike for him, but it wasn’t available. Actually, it was a good chance to chat with him. Even though we live in the same house, he doesn’t spent much time at home except to watch soccer and sleep. We took a “short cut”, which may have saved a few hundred yards, and was certainly more interesting than my usual bike route. We went by some old ruins and the Japanese cemetery.

The ruins always get my imagination going – about what it might have been like to live back then. And of extraordinary amount of effort those people put into construction that would last hundreds of years. Fernando says the secret to their extra hard adobe was pressure. But, hard to imagine what kind of engineering they had to compress some huge blocks – and don’t even get me started on the logistics of moving those suckers, very precisely, into place. There is a big complex, way up high, which must have an incredible view, but musta been a bitch to supply with food and water. And what was the sanitation? Fascinating.

The Japanese Cemetery is striking contrast to the haphazard construction in the regular Peruvian cemetery. Very clean and simple designs in that wonderful minimalist orderly Asian style. The Chinese workers also had their own cemetery on the other side of town, but they took most of the markers with them , when they left en-masse after an earthquake in the 70’s. Strange that blacks were buried in the Peruvian cemetery , but not the Orientals. Paulina says they were not allowed, but Fernando says they didn’t want to. So much for local history.

The annexes of San Pablo and San Antonio are really just one village separated by a road. Together they total about 150 people. Like the beach annexes, there are mostly dairy farms, with some goats, pigs and burros thrown in, along with the accompanying small farm plots (chakras). But, very different terrain – rocky outcroppings, with delightful little green ravines, with small springs all over. There are a wide assortment of fruiting trees – fig, mango, cherimoya, apple, banana – and a sweet little treat called cirvuelo? There is also a good sized cuy (guinea pig) farm, which is the biggest thing in town, besides a HUGE concrete soccer field.

Our mission was to find a good site for the second biodigester, which we did. Instead of a “Boy named Sue”, this is a guy named Debbie (spelled Deibe), but that’s how it sounds. His location is a little more remote than I’d like, for demonstration purposes, but he is the first person I’ve found willing to pony up the cash (and do the hard work) for an installation. He’s 35, has a nice small farm on a hill, with chakra field down below, which will make the liquid fertilizer easy to use, since he can just send it down in a tube – adding new meaning to “shit flows downhill”. He’s almost finished with a new brick home for his family of 3 (with one on the way).

I had an enjoyable morning helping Will “Pono” Jensen, the closest PCV from my WATSAN 18 group, build a second “industrial” Cocina Mejorada at the Zoo in his town of Quilmana. Yes, I said Zoo. Quilmana is only about 10km NE of San Luis, but there is no direct service, so it takes the better part of an hour to get there. Huge gorgeous Plaza and even a town Zoo. The cages are like an old style US zoo, sparsely furnished, but clean and the wide assortment of animals and birds seem well cared for. They have two soccer/basketball courts, a water park, and replicas of Machu-Pichu and the Great Wall of China. He built a residential and industrial “improved cook stoves” at the ranch style “Ponderosa” restaurant, since they will get excellent exposure to the big weekend crowds. They will also keep smoke from blowing into the faces of the cooks and diners.

Amazing that a small town can maintain such a beautiful facility. It’s about the same size as San Luis, but seems MUCH more progressive. The municipal “obras” (Public Works Dept) beats the pants off mine. Very well stocked and manned, with lots of transport vehicles. Within town limits are a cotton mill, a large seed producing fondo (plantation), a yogurt/cheese plant, and a Gloria milk processor. The four-term mayor lives in a magnificent home on the main road. I must admit to a bit of “site envy”. These folks do not have the same liaise-fare attitude that exists in San Luis.

As I mentioned earlier, cotton harvest is in full swing in the area. Many folks might feel that Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (1793) was the historical revolution in cotton production. I say, it was Taylor & Paige, who invented the mechanical cotton harvester (1850) and here’s why : I sat next to a woman on the combi who had just finished a day of picking cotton by hand. Anyone who’s been in a ripe cotton field knows how incredibly sharp and hard the bolls become – four razor sharp barbs guard the fluffy-white contents of each boll. Her hands were covered in cuts and scratches and swollen like small boxing gloves. She held them in front of her in obvious pain. When I asked her about it, she responded that “it’s only for the 2 months of cotton harvest”. They apparently have some concoction of Aloe and an herb that is used to kill the pain and help the swelling. The pain is endured because the pay is huge by Peruvian standards. A good picker, paid by the sack, can make US$30 a day – about 5 times the average pay for a woman. So, while the cotton gin saved millions of hours of tedious seed removal, the harvester saved BILLIONS of hours of hand pain. We rarely think about the pain and back-breaking sweat that goes into producing the food we eat or the clothes we wear. Maybe we should start.

 

I’m headed out on a 2 week road trip on Sunday, that will take me to Huaraz in Ancash for a renewable energy conference and then far to the north in Chiclayo, Piura for more Water & Sanitation training. There may not be a blog next week.