School of Public Health and Engineers without Borders Collaboration
Compone, Peru Assessment Trip
January 6-16, 2013
In case you are reading this blog for the first time, here's a little background. A UMCP Engineers without Borders (UMCP-EWB) team has been meeting
weekly in preparation for a trip to a rural community in Peru to assess
previously implemented projects and to develop an improved water disinfection
system. I was honored to be part of the first SPH team to join EWB on a trip,
along with SPH graduate students, Graciela Jaschek and Greg Raspanti. In a previous post (below this one), you can find my introduction and description of team members.
Daily Routines in Compone
In preparation for our first meeting with the UMCP-EWB team
in the School of Public Health Dean’s office conference room, I read a report I
found on the website about the implementation of a chlorination system by UMCP.
The report is impressive and I made notes in the margins with my questions and
thoughts. I learned over the next 2 weeks that the Compone, Peru project has
been complicated, has suffered from failed implementation, and lacks continuity
of travelling team members. That is, no one who has gone on previous trips will
be going with this team. Dr. Dave Lovell, the UMCP-EWB chapter advisor was
straightforward in his choice of words, “You may find the community frustrated,
even hostile.”
What we found was quite different than we feared. The
community seemed to have little historical memory of UMCP-EWB’s failures, but
rather, the presence of George Mason University doing parallel projects. This
surprise became an inside joke among the team, a developing rivalry unknown to George
Mason, in which we, UMCP want to be known by the community as the winning
team—collaborative, successful in fixing the water-related issues in the
community, and of course, as better competitors on the soccer field.
In the photo above, Maria and Kevin are enjoying hot cocoa. That morning, they woke early with the promise of learning to milk a cow at Vincente's house. The milk in the cocoa is from a cow named Linda and it was delicious! We paid 75 soles for 6 days of meals at Vincente’s house (approximately $6 a day). Margarita, his daughter, would prepare the meals – cheese sandwiches for breakfast and lunch and a meat dish with rice and potatoes for dinner. Entertainment from five year old, Jordy, was included in the price.
Compone is divided into 5 districts with a total of approximately
1200 people. Interestingly, Compone is divided as such because of its water
issues. Five irrigation and water treatment systems are needed to serve the
homes within. Most of our work centered
around the Allya San Isidro district where both Annibal (district president) and Vincente’s homes
are located. The districts are centered on either side of a busy road where
trucks roar by at high speed. On our first morning, we witnessed the death of
one of Vincente’s dogs. I regret looking back. In College Park, when a squirrel
gets hit by a car, we call the municipality to take it out of our sight. In Compone,
Vincente waited with his shovel for a traffic-free moment, then disposed of his
pet in a ditch across the street. His
other dog looked distressed, and we are all quite sure that our
identification of dog emotion is accurate.
On either side of the road are fortuitously wide shoulders
and constant activity. Grandmotherly women walk slowly with tanned leathery
skin, tall hats, and brightly colored cloth filled with harvested grain on
their backs.
Middle aged men with gap toothed smiles sing “Buenas dias” and
shake our hands as we walk exactly one mile to breakfast at Vincente’s. Young
girls lead cows and sheep along the road toward one of many trails to or from
“el campo” where the animals graze all day long.
After each of the intermittent
heavy rains, pigs wallow with glee in side-of-the-road mud (again, I’m
confident about the personified animal emotion). Every day, the same dogs
ferociously bark and threaten to bite as we pass their homes, but over time, it
became too routine to be scary.
After breakfast, we divided into three teams to do our work.
Ed, Maria, Addison and Zack went to test water quality at different
residences or to the spring box at
“the top of the mountain” where the past attempts and future
implementation of a functioning chlorination system for Allya San Isidro will
likely take place. Kelly, Kevin, and Nelson sought out important community contacts – water
quality experts, municipal leadership, and those with historical knowledge of the project.
Greg, Graciela and I sought both community leaders and household members to
participate in our public health interviews.
Next post will be a summary of our Public
Health interviews.
