The local clubs of Rotary
International have completed
many water projects in the
100 years since attorney
Paul Harris started Rotary
in Chicago. In fact, the
first service project by
Rotary was a public washroom
in Chicago. I learned that
Rotary was going to solve
the worldwide water shortage
while at a conference in
2003, and I knew then that I
would probably end-up in
some developing county
trying to help. I’m a past
president of the Joliet
Rotary Club, and I have held
several other leadership
positions in Rotary that
tend to get me “volunteered”
for more. However, a water
project would combine my
profession, water resource
engineering, with one
of my volunteer interests,
Rotary. I did not know then
how many more of my life
experiences would be drawn
upon, or how much my life
would be expanded by meeting
the Rotary call that all
clubs undertake an
international water project.
Like me, Dan Malinowski,
PE, a partner in Jacob &
Hefner Associates in Joliet
saw the ability to combine
his engineering knowledge
with the opportunity to
serve. Herman Haase,
Will County Judge, as the
Joliet Rotary International
Service Chairman, heeded the
call to form a committee to
find a water project. But
the project found him first.
Kristy Wegner, a
Purdue civil engineering
graduate from Frankfort had
joined the Peace Corps
in 2004
and was working on water
projects in Santiago,
Dominican Republic.
Children were sick and dying
because
of the polluted water in the
Santiago suburbs of Los
Cocos and Cienfuegos. She
had found a solution, water
filters, which were working,
but as a volunteer with
limited resources, she could
never satisfy the need. In
the summer of 2005 she wrote
a letter to the Joliet
Rotary Club requesting
assistance. The letter had
reached Herman, and was
sitting in a pile to be
evaluated by the Water
Committee.
Kristy came home in
July
of 2005 to celebrate the
wedding of a friend from
high school. At the
reception her parents were
seated next to a
distinguished looking
gentleman. As they shared
stories Herman realized whom
their daughter Kristy was,
and vice-versa. Herman was
sold on the need for
Kristy’s project, and she
was invited to speak to the
Joliet Rotary. After
hearing Kristy’s
presentation the Water
Committee and Board of
Directors easily, and
unanimously, decided to
support Kristy’s work.
Support
Builds
One of the tasks of the
Joliet Rotary Water
Committee was to build
support in our Rotary club,
and from other clubs in the
area. My work as an
engineer, and my volunteer
work as a high school Sunday
school teacher at Our Savior
Lutheran Church in Joliet
has made me reasonably
adequate at PowerPoint
(although my 13 year-old
puts me to shame, and she
uses more than two fingers
to type). So, I put
together a 20-minute
presentation on water
filters, and the need for
them in the Dominican
Republic. On
November 1, 2005
at the Joliet Rotary Club,
Herman Haase,
Sister Mary Francis Seeley,
Jim Costello, and I
split the presentation into
four parts, and we asked for
donations from the club
members. The budget price
for a filter was $65 and we
asked each table of eight
Rotarians to buy one
filter. That day, fourteen
tables donated about
$1,650.
The Joliet Rotarians saw the
need for the filters, and
they had stepped up to see
that the need was met. We
were all touched that day
when the Joliet Franciscan
Sisters presented a check
for $2,000.
A
few weeks later, Joliet City
Manager John
Mezera
came to the Joliet Rotary
Club to tell the members
about the latest City
projects and events that
continue to make Joliet a
fun place to live. He was
excited to share with
friends and business owners
information about the City,
but was even more interested
in what we were doing.
Herman Haase had published
an article about the need
for our water project in the
Herald News that week.
John and City officials had
read the article and saw the
need for the water filters,
and the opportunity to
help. John Mezera
presented the Joliet Rotary
Club with a $500 check from
the City. One of the only
times that a speaker has
paid us to speak!
Dan Malinowski showed our
PowerPoint presentation to
the Shorewood Rotary - they
put $650 toward the filter
project, and after I spoke
to the Plainfield Rotary
they donated $500. Before
we knew it, the Joliet
Rotary was able to send to
Kristy Wegner, the Peace
Corps volunteer in the
Dominican Republic, a series
of checks through the
Santiago-Monumental Rotary
Club that totaled $11,500.
Kristy was able to purchase
the filters for a net of
1500 pesos (about $47) each
that allowed her to obtain
240 filters with the money
that the Joliet Rotary
sent. This was enough to
improve the lives of more
than 1,000 people - but the
Joliet Rotary Club was going
to do more.
The
Technology
Before I continue with the
story of the Joliet Rotary
project to bring safe water
to the people of the
Dominican Republic, please
allow me to tell you what a
biofilter is. A simple
explanation is that it is a
sand box. The filters which
we installed (I’ll tell you
more in chapter 6)
are about three and a half
feet tall, eighteen inches
square, are made of concrete
about two inches thick, are
filled with sand, and weigh
about 250 pounds. The user
pours water into the top of
the box, the water flows
downward through the sand,
and clear water is drawn-off
from a pipe that sits below
the sand.
The sand serves two
functions. First, any
visible material in the
untreated water is trapped
by the sand and held in the
spaces between the sand
particles. This retention
of material is a physical
process called mechanical
filtration. Secondly,
and more importantly,
bacteria in the water bind
to the sand particles and
grow into a biological
film. The “bugs” in this
film need food to grow and
multiply, so as water
containing dissolved
contaminants flows past them
the contaminants are
mechanically trapped by the
slime, and eaten by the
“bugs.” This is called
biological filtration.
This technology of sand
filtration is used for many
water treatment plants in
the world, but is nothing
new. Egyptian paintings
from the 13th and
15th centuries
B.C. show
the same technology.
The biofilters we installed
in the Dominican Republic
treat about one liter
of water per minute.
The user simply pours a
bucket of untreated water
into the filter, and allows
the filtered water to flow
into a clean bucket. The
housemothers at the
orphanage we visited put a
few drops of chlorine into
the treated water to assure
its safety, but users at the
suburb of Cienfuegos told us
that they liked the taste
without the chlorine. Not
only that, but no one had
gotten sick from the water
since the filters were
installed, so why make it
taste bad? It’s hard to
argue with someone who tells
you that they’re not sick
anymore - but given a choice
I would still use a little
chlorine. I took water
samples of both pre- and
post-filtered water from a
home in Cienfuegos but I’ll
make you wait until chapter
ten to learn the results.
The Need
Kristy Wegner is a Purdue
civil engineering graduate
from Frankfort who has
volunteered for the Peace
Corps since 2004
in Santiago, Dominican
Republic. When Kristy
arrived, children were sick
and dying because of the
polluted water in the
Santiago suburbs of Los
Cocos and Cienfuegos. Los
Cocos is a suburban/rural
community of a few thousand
people in the foothills of
mountains. This town
includes the SOS orphanage
that houses about 250
children who were suffering
from the effects of unclean
water. Cienfuegos is an
urban community of close to
10,000 people built around a
dump that is always on
fire. This suburb is filled
with migrants with little to
no city planning and houses
made of concrete, wood, or
tin on streets evolved from
walking paths between where
people have decided to build
their shacks. Chapters six
through ten provide more
details of the problems in
these communities, but to
skip ahead - when Dan and I
visited them in March it was
all we could do to not weep
with despair over the
conditions. But I’m ahead
of myself.
With around 13,000 people,
just in two suburbs, of one
town, in one country
affected by unhealthy water,
the obvious question is, “What
can one young Peace Corps
volunteer, and one Rotary
club 2,000 miles away do
that can make a difference?”
I was reminded of an old
story (not really mine, but
it sounds better when I
personalize it) that I
paraphrase and re-tell
whenever I’m involved in the
seemingly impossible.
When I was 8 or 9 years old,
my family spent a week in a
beach house in Englewood,
Florida. One evening a huge
storm blew in and the
crashing surf kept us awake
most of the night. In the
morning after the storm had
passed, my younger sister
and I ventured onto the
beach - it was filled with
thousands of beautiful
starfish! As Helen and I
walked along the beach we
saw a stooped figure ahead
of us repeatedly bending and
standing. We soon caught up
with a windswept old man who
was taking small steps,
bending over with effort,
picking up starfish one at a
time, and gently lobbing
them into the ocean.
“Mister, whatcha doin’?”
“Saving starfish.”
Stoop...
pick...stand...lob...
“But there’s so many.”
“Yep.” Stoop...
pick...stand...lob...
“You can’t save them all,
can you?”
“Nope.” Stoop...
pick...stand...lob...
“But I just saved one more.”
But, unlike the old man on
the beach, Kristy wasn’t
alone. The Joliet Rotary
was here, and joined with us
were the Shorewood Rotary,
Plainfield Rotary, City of
Joliet, Sisters of Saint
Francis,
Santiago-Monumental Rotary
and the Los Cocos Rotary
clubs. Maybe, just
maybe we could save
them all.
Preparation for the Trip
Judge Herman Haase (looking
very “judge-like” on this
cold January morning)
appraised each member of the
Joliet Rotary Water
Committee as we sat around a
table in the corner of the
second floor of the
Renaissance Center. “I
think it would be a good
idea if we could send a
group from Rotary to the
Dominican Republic.”
Even though I had known this
was probably going to
happen, and it had to be
warmer there than here, I
had a thousand reasons why I
couldn’t go - I can’t
afford it, I can’t take any
more time away from the
office, baseball, soccer,
band concerts, spring break
with the kids, what
difference will it really
make?...and then I
really thought about it -
malaria, typhus, cholera,
giardia, dengue fever, bird
flu, and the people there
don’t have money but do have
guns, I don’t even speak
Spanish!!! Then there
were the serious
responsibilities and
problems that were affecting
my family, my business -
this really could not have
come at a worse time.
“I’ll ask Kristen, but I
think I can go.”
Kristen and I have been
extremely happily married
for over 20 years. I can
give many suggestions on how
to stay married, but number
one is to always respect
each other and make
decisions together.
We
didn’t need to talk for
long. This was decision of
faith. On the face, going
to the DR could not look
like a more stupid idea. It
was potentially dangerous,
it was expensive, it would
take a lot of time (not just
the time there), it could be
a futile effort. But this
opportunity had been placed
before me for a reason.
Kristen and I have walked by
faith and not by sight for a
long time, and our missteps
have been few. I gave a
list of preferred dates to
Herman.
Other members of the
Committee were added and
taken from the list as
responsibilities and health
issues came and went, but
Dan Malinowski and I bought
plane tickets for a flight
to Santiago, Dominican
Republic at 1:27pm on March
15, 2006.
I
researched the Dominican
Republic, spoke with several
people who had been to the
country without leaving
their gated and armed
compounds, and then made
sure to get immunizations
and a new life insurance
policy. I expected that our
lodging would be in some
type of tarantula-infested
hut, and that the driver who
was to be assigned to us
would be armed for our
protection. Let me skip
ahead again... Although we
were definitely NOT in a
tourist portion of the
country, we saw some
beautiful areas, met ONLY
wonderful people, and never
felt in the least bit unsafe
- well except for when
Perfecto was driving, but
that’s another story.
Arrival
March 15; and Day One,
March 16 - Los Cocos
After an uneventful plane
ride from O’Hare through
Miami to Santiago, Dominican
Republic we were met outside
of Customs by a smiling
Kristy, and our driver
Perfecto. At this point I
was beginning to be
disappointed in our
adventure. There were no
Uzi sub-machine guns
anywhere to be seen,
everyone had been smiling
and helpful, Perfecto wasn’t
armed, and there were no
bullet holes in his shiny
Camry. A brief car ride to
the beautiful Hotel Aloha
Sol in downtown Santiago
completed a disappointing
picture. Not only were we
not in danger, we were in
luxury! The most
challenging part of our
lodging was trying to guess
what language each of the
international business
people staying in the hotel
spoke. After a couple of
Presidente beers in the
pleasant bar, Dan and I hit
the sack in our rooms with
stocked mini-bars and 80
channels of cable TV.
The next morning we feasted
at the breakfast bar and
enjoyed a wonderful variety
of Dominican fare before
meeting Perfecto, Kristy,
and two of Kristy’s
Environmental Youth Group
students Santa (16) and
Jeira (17). Only in the DR
would you even consider
piling 6 people into a
Camry, but it worked as
Perfecto leaned on the horn
and accelerator pedal with
equal force. We careened
through narrow, crowded
streets driving and passing
on the left, right, and
center of the four lanes of
traffic crowded onto the two
lane roads - finally some
danger!
We
arrived at the front gate of
the SOS Orphanage where we
were met by smiling children
and housemothers, and water
filters awaiting
installation. Dan and I
distributed crayons and
Rotary stickers to the kids
as Santa and Jeira setup the
filter in House One. SOS
has 16 houses each
with 10-15
kids and a housemother.
Today’s installations would
provide treatment for each
of the houses. I asked
where the water came from,
and was shown a sink faucet
in a clean kitchen. I was
shocked. I had assumed that
the unsafe water was coming
from some distant watering
trough, or well with wooden
bucket. But each of these
homes had hot and cold
running water that could
kill you - and we soon found
out why. While technicians
distributed the other
filters we toured the town
of Los Cocos.
In
town we saw that the soil
was sandy, the streets were
lined on each side with
ditches that flowed with
gray water (sewage from
everywhere but the toilet),
and each home had a small
bridge over the flowing
ditches. Homes and
neighborhoods had unlined
cesspools with small plastic
water lines running nearby.
The power is only on for 5-9
hours a day leading to
probable contamination of
the water lines with sewage
and it appears likely that
the well water is
contaminated before
distribution any way. We
visited a well in town that
had no treatment and
inadequate disinfection.
When we returned to the
orphanage I took a close
look at the water from the
tap. It was a cloudy tan
with visible silt and a
musty algae odor. Had I not
been to the well, I would
have guessed that it was
untreated river water.
Knowing that it was
groundwater, which in
Illinois is clear, cool, and
safe almost made me ill.
Day One
(continued) - Los Cocos
Celebration March 16
Santiago de los Trenta
Caballeros (the full name)
is the Dominican Republic's
second largest city with a
population of about
1,000,000. It also is the
oldest city on the island of
Hispaniola having been
founded in 1495 when
Columbus had a fort built on
the banks of the Yaque del
Norte River to protect gold
mining being done in the
area. Hispaniola is
immediately east of Cuba and
Jamaica, and west of Puerto
Rico. The east third of the
island is country of Haiti,
and the west two-thirds is
the Dominican Republic.
Today Santiago is primarily
a manufacturing town with a
free port, the Zona Franca,
which employs about 50,000
workers in around 60
businesses. Because of
this, it is a hub of
international business - not
a town for tourists, but a
town with business people
from many different
countries.
At
breakfast on Thursday, Dan
and I had met a charming
Portuguese businessman who
spoke Portuguese, Spanish,
French, Italian, Romance and
English. He was also a
Rotarian who was
disappointed when he had
learned the night before
that the Santiago Monumental
Rotary Club had cancelled
their regular Wednesday
evening meeting. The
Santiago Monumental Club is
comprised of the “mover and
shakers” of Santiago and
Giovanni clearly thrived on
making business contacts.
Dan and I were dressed to
work with our hands and he
seemed quite surprised when
we informed him the Santiago
Monumental Rotary had
cancelled their regular
meeting to meet with us and
the Los Cocos Rotary at a
community center pavilion in
Los Cocos that night. I got
the distinct impression that
the members of the Santiago
Monumental Rotary Club were
accustomed to having others
change their schedules for
them, and not the other way
around - Dan and Howard
must be important. We
invited
Giovanni to join us that
evening.
The Los Cocos and
Santiago-Monumental
Rotarians had prepared a
special evening for us.
American whiskey, the finest
Dominican rum, a celebration
stew called sanconcho
(which included chicken
feet). Dan and I each gave
speeches in Spanish (thanks
to translating skills of my
friend Noemi at Will County
Land Use) and several
speeches were made about
Dan, Kristy, the Peace
Corps, the Joliet Rotary,
and me. When everyone stood
to applaud and cheer, Dan
and I stood with them. When
Kristy told us that they
were applauding us we
laughed, and applauded
them. We shared pictures of
our families, tried to speak
a little Spanish, and had a
very special evening. They
appreciated our coming, we
appreciated their
hospitality - it was
wonderful.
Day Two,
March17 - El Puerto de
Barrabás, Van and Allison
After three tasty Dominican
meals the day before my
American digestive system
began to complain. But,
because I don’t know when to
quit I had another hearty
Dominican breakfast. It
would be my last. Kristy
had warned us to step
carefully into Dominican
cuisine - but I’m tough so I
didn’t listen.
Unfortunately my guts aren’t
that tough. After having
the repeated need to read
several chapters of a book I
had brought, we hit the road
to visit another Peace Corps
volunteer, Van, in the hills
above the City.
Van was only about an hour,
and a world away from
Santiago. We had to walk
across three rivers to visit
his town of El Puerto de
Barrabás where we were
treated to beautiful vistas
of the hills and rainforests
and the water issues were
supply rather than quality
related. Peace Corps,
Dominican Republic has been
doing gravity fed potable
water systems in the
Dominican Republic for 15+
years and has constructed
120+ water systems. Van, a
young man from Pennsylvania
was finishing his second
year in the DR and had led
aqueduct, spring box, water
storage, and latrine
projects in the town he
served.
In Peace Corps projects, the
community contributes all of
the labor and a small amount
of money, and Peace Corps
finds the major funding for
materials through grants and
participation of funding
sources such as the Canadian
Embassy, local development
banks, churches, and
internationally-sponsored
NGOs (like Rotary). The
community organizes the
construction through a Water
Committee, which is in
charge of maintaining the
system after it's done. And
it was Van’s responsibility
here, as it was Kristy’s
responsibility where she
worked, to pull it all
together. As remote as Van
was he still had
electricity, cable TV and a
cell phone - making him one
of the civilized Peace Corps
volunteers.
That night we had dinner
with another Peace Corps
volunteer whose life was not
as civilized. Allison, a
sparkling blonde from
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
was a forestry management
specialist stationed
somewhere way out. My
notes didn’t show the name
of the town, but she had no
electricity, water, or
cable. It was an hour plus
hike to the village where
she worked. She slept on
the floor of her hut where
the temperature dropped to 0o
C every night. Like Van and
Kristy she was challenged by
her work, but encouraged by
the changes she was making
in people’s lives. Each of
these three young people was
being an engineer with their
hands - if only I could
figure a way to put 3 kids
through school, and pay a
mortgage on $250 per month I
would have signed up for a 2
year term right then.
What I did learn though was
that the residents that work
with each of these bright,
enthusiastic, young
volunteers love them and
because of that, love the
country they represent, and
their friends who come to
visit them. It was a
pleasure, and a privilege to
meet each of them.
Day Three, March 18-
Cienfuegos
Kristy Wegner is extremely
intelligent, and she knew
how to build Dan’s and my
interest in the work that
the Peace Corps was doing.
Helping orphans was
uplifting, the central water
system in Los Cocos was
challenging, the aqueduct
and latrine projects in the
hills were like play for
engineers, and Allison’s
assignment sounded like an
adventure. All good, all
important - but what we were
to see next was like nothing
else you can imagine -
Cienfuegos.
I
still tear-up when I write
about this place. I knew it
would be bad, I’d studied
beforehand, and it looked
bad as we drove down the
muddy streets through
puddles of raw sewage. But
it was the people that got
to me. They weren’t dirty,
or unintelligent, or lazy,
or dishonest. They were
beautiful, friendly, happy
people who lived in what
are, by our standards,
hellish conditions. I’ll
describe the details later,
but I need to share
something else with you. I
am a husband of one, father
of three, a teacher of 25 -
30 in my highschool Sunday
School class, a president of
30 at my engineering firm,
and a president of several
hundred at Our Savior
Lutheran Church in Joliet.
I am many things, and would
be nothing without my
faith. I sat in my hotel
room the night after our
first visit to Cienfuegos,
and jotted some notes which
became this letter to my
church:
Jeira & Santa, the Dominican
Republic
“Abba,
Father,” he said,
“everything is possible for
you. Take this cup from me.
Yet not what I will, but
what you will.”
Mark 14:36
In March I was with the
Peace Corps in the Dominican
Republic. In the district
of Cienfuegos, I saw
children playing in sewage
in the streets, I choked
from the smoke of burning
garbage, I smelled
disease... and death.
I
know what Jesus was praying
in Gethsemane
-
you are perfect, you are
righteous, you are just, you
know what is best for us ...
BUT, this is difficult for
me. If it can be, please
make things easier. But, I
know that your will is
perfect, and you will see
that what is right is done.
I think about, and repeat
this prayer often. But, the
imperfect engineer in me
often searches for God’s
purposes in the difficult
situations in life, the
“silver lining” in every
cloud. My confidence in Him
is never shaken, but my
confidence in myself is
challenged when His purposes
cannot be understood. I’m
an engineer, I solve
problems - but to solve, I
have to understand.
I
stood on the muddy streets
of Cienfuegos, Santiago,
Dominican Republic on March
18, 2006, looked at the
life-threatening conditions,
the apparent hopelessness,
and tried not to weep.
Where is God? What can His
purpose be in all of this?
I silently cried out “My
God, my God, why have you
forsaken them?”
Mark
15:34
I
knew the answer - He was
here, but I’m not Him, so I
couldn’t see His purpose.
Then He showed me as I
looked into a ramshackle
home and saw a cross on a
dark wall, a picture of
Jesus in the next shack, a
shrine to Mary squeezed in a
tiny side yard between
weathered boards. The
residents could see hope in
Jesus, and that gave them
strength - and then He
showed me the future in two
teenage girls, Santa (16)
and Jeira (17), and that
gave me strength. An
Evangelical Pastor who had
dedicated his life to
teaching the children of
Cienfuegos had taught them,
and the two girls had taught
their families and neighbors
about keeping healthy. In
the last two years under the
tutelage of Kristy with the
Peace Corps they had learned
more, and I watched them
train adult teachers at an
orphanage. They were
intelligent, poised, with
grace beyond their years.
They are being formed into
beautiful people by the
adversity of their
situation, and the faith and
assistance of those who have
come to help. There is, as
there always is, a silver
lining, and God is, as He
always is, in control.
Day Three, March 18-
Cienfuegos (continued)
The City of Santiago didn’t
create Cienfuegos, the
Dominican Republic didn’t
create Cienfuegos, economics
did. I could begin a
lecture on world
socio-economics here, but
what has happened is that
more people have moved to
where the jobs are, than
there are jobs. The Zona
Franca (see Chapter 7)
has a lot of jobs and people
moved from smaller towns or
the country to be closer to
the work. Either they
didn’t find work, didn’t get
the work they wanted, or
don’t get paid enough to
live in a nice area, so they
moved to the inexpensive
area of Cienfuegos only a
few minutes from the Zona
Franca.
Cienfuegos surrounds the
Santiago City dump.
Therefore, if you want to
buy land or a shack it’s
cheap. If you want to build
a shack on some open land,
nobody else wants it so no
one will stop you. If you
need building materials,
look in the dump; if you
need something to sell, look
in the dump; if you need
food, look in the dump.
If
you’ve ever smelled a rotten
potato, or a dead raccoon,
you know what Cienfuegos
smells like. But it’s worse
than that because the dump
always has fires burning in
it. There is an
ever-present smoldering
plastic smoke that burns
your eyes, and permeates
your clothes. The sewage
flows down the muddy streets
and the water runs in small
pipes from shack to shack.
I
met Santa’s parents,
extremely friendly, proud
people. I told them
(through Kristy) how
professional Santa and Jeira
were while educating the
orphanage housemothers, and
what a joy they were to be
around. Mom cried, and Dad
beamed. They invited us
into their home. You had to
step over an open sewer
trench crawling with
wriggling red bloodworms to
get to the front door. The
weathered slats that passed
for exterior walls had large
gaps between them, and the
home was dark except for the
light coming through the
slats. But it was clean,
and they were proud of their
home. Santa showed me their
water filter, and I took raw
and finished water samples
to check for coliform
bacteria. Later test
results showed positive
fecal contamination of the
raw unfiltered water, and
cleaner filtered water (but
my advice remains to use a
little chlorine). As I took
the raw water sample, I
sensed a burning in my nasal
membranes. I have
refinished enough furniture
to recognize the odor of
petroleum distillates, but I
didn’t have the right kind
of bottle to take a sample
to test for them, I’d have
to come back for more
samples- I didn’t want to.
I didn’t want to be reminded
that people could live like
this only an hour and a half
from Miami.
Not that the people weren’t
great – everyone we met was
clean and happy. Pastor
Pablo Urena was phenomenal,
and his school, Niños con
una Esperanza, or
Children with a Hope is
making a difference. He
has 225 children in a
Quantum Learning program,
and Jeira and Santa had been
two of his students. The
kids growing through this
school will change the
world. There is hope,
but it’s still hard to be
here.
Kristy’s Youth Group had put
on a party for us with
snacks, music, meringue
dancing, and LOUD music -
kids are kids in every
language! Eight or ten
mothers told us about how
much better the water was
now that they had filters,
much less sickness -
everyone told us how they
loved us, and how much we
must love them to bring them
filters - wow! But the
smell, the little kids
playing in the raw sewage,
picking through the garbage
was just too much.
But Pablo and Kristy need
support and information;
I’ll come back for the
samples before I return
home.
Day Four,
March 19-
Mike and Los 27 Charcos de
Rio Damajagua
Dan had to leave this
morning to attend a
conference on Monday. When
we made the plans for this
trip, I figured that this
would be the day that the
bandoleros
would come after me.
Although bandoleros
were of no concern, I was
concerned, pre-occupied, and
less than jovial as I tried
to come up with an
affordable manner in which
to get the sewage off the
streets of Cienfuegos. When
Kristy bounced into the
hotel lobby she knew where
my mind was. “We need a
break today, let’s go visit
Mike.”
Mike is the Peace Corps
volunteer with a dream job.
He with his predecessor, Joe
Kennedy, have preserved a
natural wonder, Los 27
Charcos de Rio Damajagua,
as a national park, and
organized the tour guides
into a team with adequate
training and adequate pay.
Los Charcos is a series of
pools connected by
waterfalls in Los Rio
Damajagua. After
walking two or three
kilometers through the cane
fields and over and along
streams our guide handed
Kristy and me helmets and
life preservers and directed
us to swim upstream across
an azure pool toward a
waterfall. As we approached
the waterfall we could see a
series of handholds in the
sandstone cliff next to it.
With only a little effort we
climbed this waterfall and
swam upstream to another
waterfall. This one was
different - our guide, in an
amazing feat of athletic
prowess, climbed through the
waterfall, stood above it in
the rushing water, and
pulled us up one-by-one with
his fingertips. At 6 feet
and a little over 200 pounds
(okay the nurse with the
life insurance company said
5-11, 220 - but it had been
a stressful week) I am not
particularly dainty. Our
guide Tanko (as in “Tank”),
didn’t just lift me once
through rushing water, he
did it about six times over
two waterfalls (I kept
falling). We completed 7 of
the 27 Charcos and then had
the real fun - riding the
waterfalls back down - like
Splash Station
without the chlorine. What
a day!
Tomorrow we return to
Cienfuegos. Unfortunately,
one trip to the Charcos is
not enough to erase the
images of two visits to
Cienfuegos, but I do look
forward to reliving this
day again.
Day Five,
March 20 - One Last Visit to
Cienfuegos
We
returned to Cienfuegos, I
took more water samples.
Unfortunately there was no
water this day and I had to
take the samples from an
open bucket that was poured
the night before. The water
didn’t smell this time, and
volatile organics will
escape to the atmosphere if
left uncovered. The samples
tested in the “safe” range
for volatile organics – but
I know I smelled
something on Friday. Kristy
and I also took some
measurements of the streets,
and I came up with an answer
for the raw sewage in
Cienfuegos, but at this
point I don’t know if I will
be able to pull it off.
1. Get a map of
Cienfuegos.
2. Design a sewerage
system for Cienfuegos.
3. Get a pipe company
that I know and respect to
donate enough pipes to
contain the sewers from
three streets (including
Santa’s) in Cienfuegos.
4. Get Rotary clubs,
other interested
organizations and
individuals to share in the
cost of shipping.
5. Teach Kristy how to
layout a sewer construction
project.
6. Have the residents
install the pipe under
Kristy’s direction (she’s
asked if I can get some
shovels too).
7. Show the Peace Corps
and Santiago engineering
staff how this pipe material
works so that they want to
purchase some for future,
larger projects.
8. The pipe company is
so successful and grateful
for this business
opportunity that they open a
factory in the Zona Franca,
donate more material to
Cienfuegos, and provide
employment opportunities for
the people that live there.
I
admit, Step 8 might be a
little out there, but Steps
1 and 2 are complete, and
Kristy and I will be working
on accomplishing Step 3 when
she visits in June.
In
addition, my family
(daughters -Aileen, 13 and
Sean, 10; son -Ricky, 9; and
wife -Kristen, my age) and I
intend to learn Spanish and
visit Santiago next spring
to see how Kristy’s work is
progressing, and learn what
further assistance is needed
for the water crisis in the
Dominican Republic.
The Joliet Rotary will be
developing more projects
with the Peace Corps in the
Dominican Republic. If your
are interested in learning
more about Rotary, the Peace
Corps, the Dominican
Republic, or how you can
help - drop me an e-mail at
RotaryWater@rehamilton.org
