Datanli (cont.)

After we met with Simon, we than had about a 2 and a 1/2 hour meeting with the leaders of the church/community of Datanli and with the people from the Project office. The conversation went in circles.

Jess and I introduced ourselves and explained who we are and why we are here in Nicaragua. We than explained the water project and how things work and how it is crucial that we have the paper work and stuff like that done before the engineer will even come. The people kept wanting to nitpick over details that will come after the paperwork. Jess and I kept saying--"Yes, that's important BUT we can't handle that until we have the paperwork done." Miguel has truly been a life saver. He knows a lot about the Water Project and how the interest of getting one put in Datanli all began. I truly truly truly am thankful for him and his willingness to help us out. He is truly a God send.

After our loooooooong meeting that I had a hard time concentrating on because I was hungry, we went up to visit the water system. The news here on this topic has begun to discourage us.

The water comes from a source into a building through pipes. The pipes pump the water into a tank. Once every eight days, a guy from the church comes to the tank (which is way out on the top of this mountain. I didn't think the truck was going to make it up it). and he dumps two bags of chlorine into this tank. The water in the tank for some reason goes back into the building (maybe for measurements) and then from there the water goes in this pipe down the mountain. At an intersection, the water pipe divides and one goes to the community called Los Robles, and the other pipe travels down to Datanli. (We stopped and looked at this split in the pipe). Than the water goes either into the houses, or it goes to a spigot outside of the houses. The other thing that we learned is that the water is not continously sent to one community. One day, the water goes to one community, the other day, the water goes to the other community.

The problem is, there is no where to put the water filtration system in Datanli. There is no one source for the water. We can't put it at the top of the mountain near the tank because the people can't get to it. We would need someone up there 24 hours a day. We think. We have to talk with the water mission people, but right now it isn't looking very good. At least with the understanding that Jess and I have.

(ending post for now--will pick back up later)

Here is a picture of the meeting room and Simon's room
and the other photos is a photo of the tank and of Miguel.