As I wrote a few months back, relatively late in my service I decided that I wanted to do a SPA (Small Project Assistance from USAID) project prior to finishing up my service. The people in the village (caserío) of Los Tunales were very collaborative and together we put together a project proposal in June that got approved. The project was for pilas to be installed in twelve households with a grease trap box and water re-absorption well, directly benefitting 64 people living in those households. Along with agreeing to provide non-skilled labor to build the wells and collaborate with the bricklayers, the community members receiving pilas agreed to attend a series of workshops on hygiene, sanitation, water treatment and prevention of illness. SPA funds would pay for all materials associated with building the wells and the pilas themselves and the municipality of Pachalum would collaborate by paying for skilled labor and getting the materials up to the community, making it a three-party collaboration.
In late June we found out that the project was approved and we excitedly waited for the check in order to get started on work. In early July, my APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) Carlos came to visit the community and explain again how the project would work. Carlos came to visit during Devora’s few days in Pachalum and together with the architecture student (Jorge Mario) who drew up the plans for the pilas and wells; we all went up to Los Tunales.
Carlos explained that getting the project approved was the first step in a process, the check would take a while to arrive and in the meantime the families needed to prepare their wells, digging 3 – 5 meter deep holes with a 1-meter diameter in the lowest point on their land (to prevent flooding in case the well should ever get too full…though the likelihood of that is not too likely since only so much water can come out of a pila at one time).
Carlos explaining how the pilas would work
The decision to wait on the digging was definitely a smart one since the check for the project took over a month and a half to come in early August. When the check finally arrived, we saw that it was written in the name of the COCODE, while the bank account we had opened for the COCODE was in the name of the President. I immediately spotted the problem and told Peace Corps about it, but they told me that it should be fine at the bank, we just needed to put the stamp of the COCODE on the back of the check along with the signatures and it would all work out…of course, it did not work out. The bank that the COCODE had opened their bank account in and the bank that emitted the check for Peace Corps were two separate entities, and while we followed the instructions from the bank clerk to properly endorse the check, the bank that had emitted the check was not pleased with the endorsement (name on check did not match the bank account name) and rejected the check. Within a week of telling the community that the money had arrived and to build their wells we found out that the money in limbo.
Being the Zen person I am, I started freaking out almost immediately about the check problems – when a check is lost or somehow mishandled, it can take up to six months for a new check to sent from Washington, DC and I was about to attend my Close of Service Conference. Luckily for me, my Project Specialist was willing to go with us to the bank in Antigua to fix the misunderstanding. Early in the morning the day before my COS Conference, I went with the President and Treasurer of the COCODE and Doris to Antigua. When we got to the bank the manager came out and was not very sympathetic. Everything the clerk at the other bank had told us to do was wrong and she stamped VOID all over the back of the check. While I dramatically put my head on the counter and started praying to all the animist spirits, Doris calmly explained that checks take at least six months to be reissued and that we could surely come to some sort of conclusion. The manager relented and agreed that if we opened up a receiving bank account in the same bank, they could deposit the money there for us to then take out and put in the original bank account. Doris agreed and the lady went to the back room to make arrangements. In a short while, she called us all in the back room and busted out wads of bills – the full amount of the check, Q21,500+ (at a Q7.5=US$1 exchange rate, some $2,866). She told us that instead of making us do a ton of paperwork to open up a trash bank account (an account that would only be used once to take money out) she would give us the cash.
I was SO grateful that I could not even express my happiness and Don Isidro, cool as a cucumber took all the money and stuck it in his morral (a traditional woven purse). Don Isidro wanted to go back to Pacahlum to stick the money in the bank account there but Doris would not hear of it, people are killed for smaller sums of money so it needed to get deposited in the bank account stat. We crossed the street to where the other bank was located…and of course the computer system was down and the bank was not accepting deposits nor giving out money. The bank that the COCODE has its account in is one of the largest in Guatemala, so there are a lot of branches in Antigua, but there was no guarantee that the other branches were working either, so we sat in front of the central park and waited. And waited. And waited. An hour passed and the bank system had not been restored. Finally, we decided to check out another branch. Doris walked behind Don Isidro and I walked in front of him the five blocks it took to get to the other branch. I felt like I was in a spy movie, looking at everyone’s hands to make sure they were not getting close to Don Isidro and his morral, I was ready to use my peewee football moves on anyone who got in our way. We got to the branch and the system was working! Over a week and three hours after starting our tour of the banks, the money was finally deposited into the account!
I went to my COS Conference and visited with Estela and my host family over the weekend and arrived back in Pachalum ready to make some purchases. With Don Isidro we went to the stores that we had already made requests before we realized the money had not come through and placed our orders. Instead of starting work on August 15th like I hoped, the project was going to begin construction on September 1st. The municipality was a great collaborator, providing us with a truck to take up materials, and I made up a materials list for Don Isidro to make sure that each family got what they were supposed to. There were a lot of materials, so there were quite a few trips up to drop them off over the last few weeks of August.
Don Isidro checking the list as a woman counts her blocks for the top of the well
Two days after my birthday, while I was still fighting a fever, the pilas arrived from the capital and I decided to ignore the doctor’s orders to help deliver them.
With the pilas in Pachalum!
They are really excited, really.
In the first full week of September, Don Isidro and the other two bricklayers who were contracted to work as skilled labor started collaborating on the first house. The architecture student who had designed the project left Pachalum at the end of August, so a new person was put in as the supervisor – Don Jeremías. Don Jeremías is an older man who has worked as a Supervisor of Projects (his title) for the municipality for the past seventeen years. He is a very skilled worker and he brought to the project years of experience to make improvements while the project was being executed.
According to the plans drawn up by Jorge Mario, each well would be topped with a brocal (not sure of English term) of blocks and then covered by a cement top. The blocks were supposed to be flat with the short end going around the well hole, but the first go round the bricklayers misunderstood and though that the blocks needed to be broken in half, making the well stick out more from the ground (I am only explaining this so that in future posts you can notice the difference).
First well
One of Don Jeremías’ suggestions for a change from the original plan was to stick a piece of tubing in the top of the well so that gases could escape and not build up pressure.
Another suggestion that Don Jeremías had was to use bricks to build a base for the pilas and the grease trap box (instead of not making a base and using cement for the grease trap box). Since Don Jeremías has worked on many drainage projects for the municipality, he felt that bricks would be better for building the grease trap box and he donated some 1,500 bricks that had been left over from previous projects. Thanks to the savings of cement from using the bricks, we were able to additionally include a plancha (a cement base) for the pilas so that water would not splash out and create mud around the base of the pilas. This idea had not been included in the original plan because we did not have enough money for all that cement…but Don Jeremías saved the day.
Don Jeremías with the pila resting on the brick base and the initial hole for the grease trap box
Don Jeremías and Don Isidro discussing how to build the grease trap box
Measuring the depth of the grease trap box once the bricks were laid
Covering the bricks with cement in the grease trap box. In the foreground the wood is the mold for the plancha to be built as the base of the pila
The cover for the wells are so thick they need at least a week to dry out before moving them in order for them to not crack
Little girls watching their grandpa, Don Isidro, digging a well
These photos were taken from the first week of construction. In the first week, all the bricklayers worked together, so only one house was completed. The following weekend there were elections and then Independence Day, so work was put on hold for a while and due to some complications, I was not able to return to Los Tunales until the last week of September when the project was completed. Stay tuned for more photos of the completed pila project coming soon!
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