A day in the field: Trip to Santa Rosa

Hello everyone!

I hope this post finds you all well as October is winding down to an end! I'd like to share with you what I learned, saw, experienced, and felt yesterday when I travelled to Santa Rosa with the EMAPA crew. It was a really eye-opening trip, and definitely one of the highlights of my time here so far in Peru. You know when you just have a day that really stands out and makes you think? That's how I felt yesterday. It was a great way to celebrate the 7-week mark of my time here (as of today, I have been here for 50 days already! Times flies!).

This is someone's house.

Friday update!

Until today I did not feel like I had accomplished much since I have mostly been sitting around and waiting for paperwork to get processed, but since yesterday I am now officially a member of the 'proyectos y obras' (projects and works) department and today is my first day with them. I was FINALLY given work (yay for working with an organized engineer! - Juan Candia).

This morning first thing we went to a slum, essentially it's a place just south of the city where there is currently urban expansion, it has no running water/sewage, and it is built pretty much on a big sand dune (but tough enough to be mountain-like). Good thing there isn't a lot of rain, because I think that it would all erode. Not sure how long these houses will last. Anyways, the engineers needed to analyse the site because they're putting in water and sanitation services. Unfortunately I didn't know before going that we were going there so I was in my business shoes, but that's okay. There were TONS of mosquitoes (but they don't look like the ones at home) - they would fly in the wind and then cling to your clothes. We had to de-mosquito ourselves before leaving because it was ridiculous. Kind of happy I didn't have to stay there too long (or at least next time I go I will dress differently). But I had a great morning. After coming back to the office, I read through the  federal standards for all water sanitation procedures. I also read through an environmental assessment for a project and was providing feedback (I read the entire 24-page document and submitted quite a bit of feedback/things to improve this morning). This afternoon I will keep going over my environmental assessment recommendations with the engineer. We'll see how much I actually accomplish and what gets put into practice, but I am learning. And reading and speaking lots of Spanish :) I barely have to think anymore (even though I still make word/verb errors). But it's getting much more fluid I think (biased opinion perhaps?).

I'll try to post more later, but until then, I'm wishing you a wonderful Friday afternoon and a great weekend!
Sheila

A day in the field: Trip to various locations around Huacho

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011, Itxel and I got the privilege to go on another field trip with the sanitation engineer Juan Candia Cuno. This time, we got to visit different regions of Huacho (the city where we are living) - but not the touristy version.

Our first stop was the port. This is a pretty busy area (and not very safe), as there are many commercial and local fishers. Since we were there in the afternoon, we got to see some of the local fisherman pulling their boats out of the water.

Typical afternoon at the port in Huacho

A day in the field: Trip to Sayán and Végueta

Friday, September 16th, 2011, Itxel and I headed to visit two other districts in the Huaura province, Sáyan and Végueta. They both receive water treatment services from EMAPA Huacho. Sayán is roughly a 45-minute drive inland and into the mountains, while Végueta is right on the coast, about 20 minutes north of Huacho. We spent the day visiting the two sites with an engineer from EMAPA Huacho, Juan Candia. He wanted to show us the potential locations for new waste water treatment plants in both of these locations.

From everything that I have learned so far in Huacho, this is how their water system works:
1) Pump water from the ground.
2) Inject water with chlorine gas to help clean it.
3) Pump water up to a water tower on a hill/elevated area, to insure water pressure throughout the town.
4) Water drains down into subscriber's homes/businesses using the flow of gravity (only Sayán has continuous service 24 hours/day).
5) Waste water drains by means of gravity to a central location.
6) Untreated waste water gets dumped into river (in the case of Sayán) or ocean (in the case of Végueta and Huacho).

Waste water from Sayán going straight into the River Huaura