S&T EWB team prepares to head home from Honduras
Patricia Hallier of Oak Grove, Mo., a sophomore in chemical engineering, gives the EWB team's update on their experience in Honduras.
I
t's Saturday and we've just completed the last of our projects in Santiago. On Wednesday we added ferrocement to the entire 5,000 gal tank and laid most of the piping. It was a long day, but after that most of the work was accomplished. The next few days we spent finishing piping and sealing the tank and completing our rainwater collection systems.
The rainwater collection team was able to set up systems at two different locations as examples for the locals. We will continue to work with them after we leave by funding 10 houses at a time until all 36 families have a system set up. What we set in motion will improve the living conditions for this community dramatically because currently they have no way of obtaining clean water.
The rainwater project will provide the people of Santiago with more water, but still not of a high quality. Two more rotary biosand filters were purchased and placed in the church and the home where the rainwater collection systems were installed. A few of the filters installed earlier in the week had a few problems, so they were replaced with working filters for the families to use. Dr. Raul, the area's mayor as well as medical doctor will continue to check on the success of the filters, and that they are being properly maintained and used. If all goes well, we plan on providing the community with more filters, and will send the educational materials that we have made to the community leaders, to better help them instruct the community of their use.
This afternoon we had a meeting with community leaders to discuss the results our trip, the findings of our assessment team, and future plans. They expressed appreciation for what we've been able to do and that we completed it in the time here. It was sad to say goodbye to the friends we made and take the last drive back to Pimienta over the mountain. Tomorrow we´ll see San Pedro Sula and get ready to leave. We're definitely looking forward to coming back to Santiago next year.
As for our other groups, the water filtration team met yesterday with the families who received water filters. The families also received small water storage tubs to put their filtered water in. Today, the team went to the homes and helped set up the filters and answer any further questions. We have seen a lot of excitement over the filters and hope to be able to get many more to the community soon. The team also went to the Kindergarten and high school yesterday to talk to the children about the filters. The young kids were more interested in the “gringos” than they were with the filters, but nonetheless, it was a great visit. And one of the girls at the high school requested a filter be donated to their school. So it was nice to see interest in what we are doing.