Tuesday- The Rainy season began early this year.

It RAINED and RAINED and then it RAINED some more all night and the roof is metal, so I heard it all.  So much rain that we had spells of electrical failure.  Our expectation for today was to take a rented van to Kukra Hill to visit last year's friends and the water system we installed there.  Yobeth came to tell us that because of all the rain, the road (that we traveled on the bus just the night before) was impassible with some areas washed out and others totally under water so that the driver couldn't tell where the big rocks were.

We waited, and waited (we had originally planned to leave around 8), but didn't finally begin our trip til 11 or so, when our driver deemed the roads to be passable.  The pictures show the road and the land under water surrounding the road.

We arrived at the water building in Kukra Hill about noon, looked the facility over and noticed some physical improvements.  The floors are now tiled over the concrete, a partial wall was built between the bottling station and the front sales area (health department mandated) and a cover was added over the outside washing station.  The facility is clean and was working well when we were there.  The main change is the new personnel who are working there. 

Operator in protective gear

The operators we trained to run the system are no longer there, but the current operators seem very well versed in the care and maintenance of the system.  At this time 2 operators were at work and we also met a young man who is the delivery person.   Part of our obligation to this community is to provide new filters, which we brought and gave to the operators.

Bottle washing station, still no sink

After watching the operators in action, we invited the pastor Arron to lunch at his sister-in-law's new cafe.  We talked to him about the success of the operation and he assured us that all was working well, even though the original operators had left.  One of the operators, Sugey Hunter is training to work in a new bank in K. H., but she will continue doing the monthly reports.  The other operator, Egen had gone to Managua to be with an injured friend and doesn't know if he'll be back or not.   By the way, I had a chicken quesadilla and it was excellent (service was pitifully slow, but food very good).

Having satisfied our first goal of the trip, to check in on the Kukra Hill facility, we were satisfied that things were going well.  We reminded Aaron that the operators should attend the Pearl Lagoon re-training tomorrow to have questions answered. 

Driving out of town, I noticed an entire family of 5 on a motor scooter.  I guess folks make do however they can.






We drove back to Pearl Lagoon and the Green Lodge, where we  talked about our plans for the next day's training.


 I had originally been told to prepare to do "re-training" for Health and Hygiene for half a day (3.5-4 hours) while the operators would retrain on the system maintenance and water testing.   The co-ordinator of this event decided all the people attending should get some Health and Hygiene training since many of the systems had slighted H and H training during the original installation.   Therefore we did not divide into 2 groups, but stayed together as a group and my time allotment was changed from 3+ hours to 45 minutes.

Needless to say, I had to prioritize my plans and choose the most important areas on which to focus.   In preparation of the trip, I had gathered household items to use for activities and was planning on combining some of the Bible stories with other activities.  Most of these plans had to go by the wayside.

One valuable preparation was to print and laminate the posters which describe how to use the clean water and when to wash hands.  These posters have colorful pictures and are available in English and Spanish.  I put the English and Spanish back to back and laminated each set.  I prepared 30 copies of each of the two important posters.  Then I did the same process with the list of instructions covering how to care for the 5 gal bottles in which the clean water is sold.  I did the laminating at home in preparation for this training and with the way the shortened time turned out, I spent most of my teaching time going over these posters and asking the participants about the information they contained.   More about the actual training later.