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Water supplies go down the drain

Seeing their precious water supplies go down the drain is actually exactly what the people of El Ojochal del Listón want.  Why?  Because in this village, drain pipes take rainwater collected from the roofs of each house and channel it to the newly constructed rainwater harvesting tanks.  This rainwater will last for the five month long dry season, saving them a four hour daily walk for the water they need for drinking, washing and cooking.

Since the first community tank was built at the makeshift school back in 2006 the villagers have been asking for their own family tanks.  They have worked long and hard to improve the road, to open up access for the Nuevas Esperanzas 4x4 vehicle to transport the materials up to even the highest houses of the community.

It will take over 600 metres of guttering and pipes to connect up the roofs of all the houses to the 21 tanks which have been built this year as part of the Mountain Rain project in the villages of El Ojochal, Agua Fría, El Ñajo, El Caracol and Las Pilas.  Add to this almost a thousand joints and fittings as well as the 21 Oxfam-recommended, water efficient, non-drip, self-closing taps brought from the UK, and the task of connecting up the tanks is quite challenging.

Once again, we are working against the clock.  The September rains came late this year but we know there are only a couple of months left before the dry season starts.  Villagers are working hard to extend their roofs to maximise the volume of water they can collect with corrugated iron sheets provided by Nuevas Esperanzas and the local Mayor.  With the corrugated iron in place, the Nuevas Esperanzas team can help fit the gutters, ensuring the correct gradient for the water to flow into every tank.

The families in El Ojochal have seen a transformation over the last few months.  Families who last year lived in a small makeshift house with a palm or plastic roof now have a much improved house with a corrugated iron roof, a latrine close by and a rainwater harvesting system providing them with a clean water supply a few metres from their door.  Blanca Azucena, who lives with her husband Victorino and her one year old baby, told the Nuevas Esperanzas team she never imagined she would have a proper house and water supply.  Now she feels safer and much happier for herself and her family.  The tank which supplies her house is shared between her house and the house of her father-in-law, Marcial.

Blanca Azucena is not the only one to appreciate the change this project is making to daily life.  Sixty-six year old Natividad was asked by Nuevas Esperanzas’ engineer if it would be a problem to locate the tap a few metres away from his house because of the slope of the land.  Natividad’s reply was to smile and say “what do six metres matter if for all these years I have been walking for hours to Agua Fría and San Jacinto to get water?”.  This project is just beginning to make its impact.

08/10/09