Interview with Elba Lopez Guzman (Restaurant Owner)

After touring some nearby projects, my guide (Angel from El Provenir) stopped to have lunch in Boaco Viejo at Elba’s restaurant. After eating she began to tell us her story and experience with the projects.

Elba was born in Boaco Viejo and has lived there her entire life. She says the community has a population of about 4500 people (with 35% of the population having immigrated into the community at some point).

She said the community had little luck before 2006 in getting someone (government institution) to help with the water situation. In 2005, they started developing the project with El Porvenir. They felt that water and latrines are what they needed most as a community. El Porvenir helped with developed the plans for the execution of the project. In 2006, they started to build latrines and then moved onto wells. The project was developed in 2004-2005 (planning stages). In 2006, the execution phase began and in 2007, the project was completed.

Elba says there are ten wells in the community. She is very grateful for El Porvenir for helping with wells, latrines, educational workshops, reforestation, and eco-friendly stoves. She says that the community has benefitted greatly form all these contributions and improvements.

Before the construction of the projects, Elba and the rest of her community to walk really far to get water, which made life much more difficult. Now, she can bring water into her home and she says most people only have to walk ten or twenty meters. It has helped a lot of families and has really had a dramatic effect on the health of the community. It is a benefit for both adults and children, she pointed out.

El Porvenir also provides educational classes about the wells and latrines. They offer these classes in school as well. Elba said that the educational workshops have been very important to Boaco Viejo because not everyone is accustomed to the new norms that are associated with having accessible latrines and a reliable supply of clean water. The classes have been great for implementing new habits into the community. She also stressed the importance of remembering how to properly care and maintain the latrines… which was also covered in the educational workshops.

For more photos from Boaco Viejo, please visit...

...http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonpolka/sets/72157624844865582/

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Interview with Maria Antonia Méndez Flores

Mrs. Mendez Flores lives in Boaco Viejo, in the sector of July 19th. She is the mother of 7 children, three boys, all single and 4 girls, 2 of whom are married. She has lived in Boaco Viejo for 14 years. Before the water project, there was water close by to the house, but it was on private land owned by one of the land owners, and this man did not like to let them take this vital liquid, since he had cattle and that was his priority. What he did was to reduce the amount of water they could take. Normally, they carried 6 buckets of water on their heads over a distance of 1km. They used this water exclusively for drinking. For washing clothes, she had to go in search of water in the streams of the community, and sometimes walked up to 3km, since in the dry season, the streams dried up and it was not easy to encounter water. The children were left alone in the house, and the majority of the people had the same problem, and had no one to look after their kids. She only brought the newborn with her to carry water, since he needed more care and attention.

The activity of carrying water on one's head was carried out every day devotedly and the labour to leave the home to wash clothes was carried out every three days. In order to be able to go out to wash the family clothes, the day began at 4am, to prepare the food so that her husband could leave for work with some food in his belly and with a lunch in a container wrapped in some cloth, since she would not return from washing clothes until 5pm. The children were fed before she left, but the lunch was eaten cold. According to Mrs. Maria Antonia, these small activities took a lot of time since just looking for the vital liquid consumed time to be able to carry out the other activities that she learned as a young single woman.

Maria Antonia reflected that now with the construction of the water project that was completed with the help of El Porvenir in her sector, as well as the construction of the sanitary units (washing and bathing station), everything has changed. Now she can get up a little later without worrying if they will allow her to have the vital liquid, it is now just 80 meters away from her home. Now they take advantage of the time saved to do other activities. A year and a half ago, she installed a small store in her home to be able to help with the economic expenses in the home and in her free time, she takes care of the roses in her house. This is one of her favorite activitie because she loves the gardens when the roses are blooming and as well she invests time in making embroidered pieces like hankerchiefs or pillow cases. Most importantly, she considers that she has more time for her family, especially the care of her mother who is still full of life although she has osteoporosis. But in spite of all this, she considers that she has a more relaxed life, since she does not get up in the morning with the worry of going out to the river to wash clothes with the fear of being surprised by some animal or being a victim of lightning in the rainy season and now her husband and children eat their three hot meals a day when they have them (food).