In these last few weeks in Trojes, Honduras, I have had the chance to get a closer look into one of our completed communities, Samaria.  As part of a follow-up project, we are returning to randomly chosen communities to survey families about their filter use and Samaria happened to be one of these chosen communities.  While it is only 26km from our office, a one-way trip on a motorcycle can take anywhere from 1-3 hours, depending on the weather conditions.  In fact, if it’s raining, the road becomes so slippery even staying upright on foot can be a challenge let alone trying to get a motorcycle up a mountain!  Nonetheless, however slowly we traveled, we arrived safely on every occasion.

As well as getting to know the people of Samaria, we got to know the land better. While many houses are along the main road in Samaria, some are not so close. This photo was taken while walking to one of our randomly chosen houses, a 1 ½ hour walk from the main road.

There are currently 51 filters in Samaria and, since it would be unrealistic to talk with every benefactor, we randomly choose 16 families to survey.  I have to say that since we are still in the middle of our follow-up project of 9 communities, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about the project’s long-term success.  However, with that said, there are some results that are hard for me to keep quiet.  For example, no one we surveyed has had any problems with their filter, every family is either satisfied or very satisfied with theirs and 15 of the 16 mentioned they were in better health since they started drinking the filtered water (the one other family reported that their health was the same as before and couldn’t recall the last time family member had diarrhea).  Also, simply speaking with mothers, kids and fathers also gave me the impression that the project has done wonders for these families.

The coming weeks will bring us into a few more communities here around Trojes and also to some projects Danlí where filters were implemented a few years ago.  While Samaria’s and other communities’ results reflect many successes of the project, they also shed light on what might have gone overlooked or where we could improve in the future.  This is a learning process for the whole team and already, a few interventions are underway.  Nevertheless, we are very pleased with what we’ve seen so far as are the benefactors  when their children no longer miss class because of stomach problems.

Although we have been returning to completed projects lately, numerous filters have been installed in other communities and normal project operations have continued.  Furthermore, we just finished moving our office to a bigger location where we can store more of our materials instead of renting other spaces around Trojes.  As I said earlier, I don’t want to jump to conclusions but, nevertheless, I am excited to begin surveying other communities and meet more of the healthy benefactors of our project!

In addition to correct filter use, safe water storage is critical. We recommend that water is stored in covered containers and we were happy to see it practiced in about every occasion in Samaria.

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