Progress and a new Volunteer

The Santos community turned out this morning to welcome Hana and Martin from Peace Corps staff and voice their support for hosting a two-year volunteer. I think they made a great showing and have already found housing and a list of projects for a new volunteer.

Jimenez house

There are no seats (yet) in the Casa Comunal (community meeting place). But, we have a plan - when we clear the trees from around the newly renovated water tank, we can cut them up and make benches. 2 birds, 1 stone.

Simone's house would make a nice PCV private residence

Part of the site selection process for new Peace Corps volunteers is finding suitable housing for their 2 year stay. Santos has some good possibilities. 
This will give an idea of "normal" PCV living conditions. Normal is hard to define, since every village and town has different conditions.

The family latrine has a superb view of the Risco River

In Panama, PCVs live with a host family for their first 3 months. The Jimenez family (no relation to Jose) has grandfather, Mom, Dad and 7 kids - a good sized host family. The PCV would get a private room, but share bath facilities.

After their first 3 months with a host family, PCVs can elect to stay or move to private quarters. This house is vacant and available - a bit of a fixer-upper. Right now, there is a small solar panel. But the house will soon have regular 110VAC power from the grid.

New ladder gives easy access to the tank for more better
maintenance

We tested the new access ladder on the Barriada Santos water tank today. It worked like a charm. Then we used it to clean out the mud and water that has been sitting in the tank for over a year. After that, we inspected the new "end around" supply line - a GREAT success - folks on the other side of the canyon have only had water pressure at night, when all the other taps are turned off. Now, they have good water pressure in the middle of

Tank cleaning time 4" of muddy water

the day!! Big smiles all around and Well Done to the community workers for their hard work.

Three Little Pigs - the story comes to life with these adorable 4 day old piglets.

Work a Dog Days

The "Senior Staff" of Santos - all of us over 60

At last, the time has come to do work on the waterlines – my favorite part. Construction and repair work is just so instantly satisfying and gratifying. While the rest of the community was busy schlepping materials up to the new spring site for Barriada Santos, the “Senior Staff” and I did some plumbing work.

Waterline cleared and repaired

First, we cleared a plugged line from the lower canyon water intake – full of mud and some small animal skeleton. Then we replaced some bad pipe and added a valve for more control options. 

The MacGuyver field patch

Along the way, Usevio clipped the tube with his shovel, so we had to do a MacGuyver field patch (having no proper fittings). It was a clever fix and didn’t leak a drop.

The new water control center

Then we created a new junction where the dirty water from the canyons (quebradas) meets the clean spring water from the storage tank. New valves will allow full control of water flow.

We are running an “end-around” pipe direct from the main line to the houses up high on the other side of the village, across the canyon. They have never had decent water pressure and this will give it to them. We made a valved spur, but didn’t run the full 320 meters.  It’s a start that the youngbloods can finish.

The waterline ran right in the middle of a major trail
and was dangerously exposed - we made it all better

Finally, we corrected a really bad situation where the water line was right in the middle of a frequently travelled path. (They call it “Camino Real” it’s so popular). The tube was exposed well above the path and made for a tripping hazard, as well as the cause of frequent breaks by people, cattle and horses. We just spliced in some new heavy gauge pipe and buried it 12” below the path.

The major trail "Camino Real" - used to be the major route
to Almirante - now mostly supplanted by bus and paved road

All in all, a good productive day. I love working with the Older Guys – our work is thoughtful, steady and deliberate. Kids bring us coffee and cacao and we chat while we work. They have great curiosity about what life is like in the US. Of course, explaining that is like describing an elephant while only touching one part. Their biggest puzzle is our tendency for violence – against each other and other nations. Does everyone in the US have many guns?? Etcetra.

PC Regional Leader Hana meets with the Santos elders

A couple of days ago, our PC Regional Leader, Hana, came to lay the preliminary groundwork for getting a new WASH volunteer to live (regular 2 year service) in Santos. The community is excited and has already secured a host family for the first 3 months and a small private house for the rest of the PCVs service. They have a ton of ideas of what they’d like the volunteer to do – it should be a great 2 years for some lucky person.

The latest fad in Santos is the kid’s begging me to take their photo. They get all excited and crowd around to see the photo replay. Their surprise will be that I’m printing the photos and giving them, so they will actually have a photo of themselves. This is pretty rare here – no school photos or family snapshots are available. Oh, the simple things we take for granted in Estados Unidos.