It’s been a while since I’ve written, but I think I’ve finally recovered from my writer’s block!  Since I last wrote, the dry season has gradually settled in here in Trojes, with the daily rainstorms of the wet season fading to just a few sprinkles once in a while.  Little by little, the lush green mountain pastures have browned and shrunken and the cows have slowed their milk production.  The shade-grown coffee plantations and patches of rainforest hold moisture longer, but even there a layer of dust has settled that rarely gets washed off.  The raging muddy rivers of September have shriveled to small crystal streams, dwarfed by their exposed gravel beds.

The knee-deep red mud on the road to Los Angeles is finally drying up. Ostilio and I visited the community recently to monitor the filter project.

Families in the countryside take advantage of the season for home improvement, hacking clay out of the hillsides with pickaxes and forming it into adobe bricks which they dry in sun.  The roadsides are dotted with the small caves left behind like burrows of some wild animal.  In town, the muddy streets have dried to a fine sandy powder.  When the wind blows, clouds of dust swirl up and shopkeepers emerge with buckets of water to wet down the street.  Some trees have dropped their leaves and others are blooming with huge pink and orange flowers.

Among the families randomly selected for monitoring were the González-Sánchez. We found them on the path halfway to their house. They were carrying bibles and notebooks, on their way to a prayer meeting at the church. (The next time we came back, we found them in almost exactly the same place, again carrying bibles and the guitar the boys are learning to play at church. The boys later strummed some ranchera praise songs for us, to the pride of their dad, Luís.)Azucena, the mother, accompanied us back to the house for the interview so we could check the filter. It was a long hike through pastures and a coffee plantation. We scrambled over rocks and crawled on our bellies under fallen trees in ravines. Here her oldest daughter, Araceli, shows us the way. She trotted nimbly through the forest while Ostilio and I huffed and puffed to keep up.

The thick mosquitoes of the wet season have all but disappeared and Trojes is temporarily relieved of the threat of dengue fever.  Waterborne diseases like diarrhea relent in the dry season also, without runoff to carry fecal contamination into the creeks and aquifers.  Of course, all the built up feces will come rushing back into the water in May and June with the first heavy rains of the wet season, which often trigger the worst outbreaks of the year.

Pure Water is taking advantage of the dry season to install filters in communities where road access is most precarious the rest of the year.  The hundreds of filter-owning families Pure Water has helped since last May will be able to face the wet season with confidence this time!

We found Azucena’s filter in excellent condition. The family has been following all the operation rules correctly. We also took a water sample which corroborated the quality of the filtered water. Azucena said she has seen the results of the filter in the health of her five children. “The kids used to get diarrhea, but not anymore,” she told us.

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