Lush hillsides filled with coffee plants surround the small towns of Rio Blanco and Choatulum, a two-hour drive from the city of Antigua in southwestern Guatemala. They provide a beautiful backdrop for the women who spend much of their day trekking between the towns and a nearby spring, carrying buckets of water home on their heads to their families, but they belie the arduousness of the women’s work.
Many of the women walk back and forth on this road for over six hours a day, the time it takes to make four trips to gather the 20 gallons of water that a family of six requires. Even then, the water has to be boiled first. Many choose to forego the spring entirely, opting instead to drink from a shallow, polluted river about a half-mile away.
On June 10, two local couples associated with Rotary — former Menlo Park club co-presidents Roger and Betty Toguchi, and Rotary International member Mark Campbell and his wife, Renate — traveled to five Guatemalan villages that are home to indigenous Mayans to look into the water problem and talk about possible solutions with community leaders. World Neighbors, an organization that works with rural communities, helped organize the trip.
Based on the facts the Rotarians gathered during that 10-day trip in June, the local organization has set out to raise nearly $35,000 to provide clean water to Rio Blanco and Choatulum, each with a population of about 400 people. Those two villages were chosen because they have the most infrastructure in place, according to Ms. Toguchi. The other three towns they visited are nestled around Lake Atitlan.
The water project calls for installing pipes from two nearby lakes up the hill to the villages, and to eventually provide townspeople with individual UV purification buckets — a new, easy-to-use technology that will allow residents to filter their water after it’s delivered to their homes.
Rotary will also supply latrines and a gray-water disposal system, if all goes according to plan.
“We don’t drink the water, we chew it.”
The Campbells and the Toguchis were accompanied to Guatemala by water specialist Florence Cassaseuce. They had worked together on a similar project last year to provide UV filtration buckets to outlying areas of La Paz, in Baja California. The project was so successful that the World Bank awarded Ms. Cassaseuce a $172,000 grant to provide UV bottles for all of Baja.World Neighbors heard about the Rotarians’ efforts in Mexico and urged them to undertake a similar project in Guatemala.
“We were just planning to give them UV buckets, until we saw how far away they were from the water source,” Ms. Toguchi said.
She said that when Ms. Cassaseuce measured the level of bacteria in the nearby river, the townspeople responded that they are aware that the water’s bad — they just have no money to improve it.
The results of the test confirmed what an observer would note simply by looking at the silt-filled water: It’s not safe to drink.
Diarrhea is a common problem for people drinking the water, as is the more serious threat of bacterial dysentery. Rio Blanco saw 20 cases of it in the month of May, with one death.
To the people in the two towns, it’s clear that there’s a problem. Women complain that the clothes they wash in the river often come out brown. They even have a saying: “We don’t drink our water, we chew it.”
Crushing poverty
When the Toguchis and Campbells reached Guatemala, they discovered that the water issue is only symptomatic of the problems faced by the communities there. They also found an alarming degree of poverty, made worse by a government that has done little for the people.Most homes are single-room shacks with dirt floors. Some of the families have acquired chimneys only recently, and many have done so reluctantly — they use open charcoal stoves to both cook their food and heat their homes, despite the health risks (such as asthma) posed by the smoke.
Ms. Toguchi was surprised to find that schools in many towns she visited didn’t have basic school supplies, and she quickly rushed to buy materials and chairs in some of the villages for nominal prices.
When she asked townspeople why the government wouldn’t help them get drinking water, many responded by saying that the government doesn’t care about them. Though they make up nearly half of the country’s population, Mayans are a social minority, relegated to rural areas while the dominant Mestizos and Latinos, of mixed Mayan and European (usually Spanish) heritage, live in the cities.
Clean water by July?
The Rotarians hope to secure funds for the water projects by the beginning of next year, and to complete them by July. They have received donations from the San Carlos Rotary club and the Vashon Island club in Washington, and will receive additional matching funds of three to four times the amount they raise from the Rotary district organization and Rotary International. The clubs have raised $6,500 so far.In the future, Ms. Toguchi said, she hopes the club will also try to provide UV buckets for the other three towns they visited. Other projects she’d like to see Rotary take on include installing self-contained stoves with chimneys for more families in the villages, and donating much-needed supplies to local schools.
In addition to providing Rio Blanco and Choatulum with clean water, the current project will allow the town’s women to have more free time, Ms. Toguchi said. She was impressed by the weaving and embroidering skills of many of the women, and said they told her they would spend their time doing that instead of gathering water if a purification system were in place.
Still, money will be scarce. Ms. Toguchi said that the women told her it takes over 60 hours to weave a standard item of clothing, for which a worker might hope to receive $15, U.S. She showed off two purses that she bought in Guatemala for a pittance compared with what they would go for in this country.
Though the Rotarians’ project focuses on an isolated area, Ms. Toguchi hopes that other organizations will take notice.
“We hope that this will be a model for other projects around the world,” she said.
The Toguchis said the trip underscored the privileges enjoyed by U.S. citizens. “I’m grateful I was born in the United States,” said Mr. Toguchi, who added that he felt relieved when he stepped back onto U.S. soil. “I’m happy I don’t live in state of constant fear. There are no guards, no barbed wire.”
“We take water for granted,” added Ms. Toguchi. “It made me ask myself, ‘Why do I drink bottled water?'”
