Blogging Guatemala: Catching up
Words we're learning: pila means outdoor sink and bombaros means firefighters. We think. Anyway, Jake and Cassidy have really been on the ball in terms of providing us with information about their research-related spring break trip to Guatemala. Dispatches from Saturday and Sunday have already been posted. Here are today's updates:
OK. On day three we split up, so me and Cassidy will both be posting about our different activities.
The operations and maintenance group installed two different systems. The first we installed was a ceramic filter system at the Ruth and Naomi Project. It was installed in the pila, which acts as a sort of outdoor dishwashing area and is their main source of cooking and drinking water. We had to make a few trips to the hardware store to purchase different fittings, which you can imagine was an exercise in frustration. However, it went together fairly smoothly and hopefully after today's testing we will be able to provide them with a proven potable drinking water source.
The second system is a UV disinfection system and was installed at the Bombaros station. After our previous frustrations at the hardware store, we wised up a little and remembered to bring our receipt. That way we could simply hand it to an employee. As you can imagine this greatly improved communication. Again the system went in as planned and the Bombaros should be enjoying potable water within 48 hours.
Tonight and tomorrow we plan to perform testing on both systems and provide education of maintenance procedures for Pastor Diego at Ruth and Naomi and the Bombaros.
Signing off from Guatemala,
Jake
Cassidy's dispatch from Monday is after the jump...
The materials group traveled back to Pastor Tomas´ house to test their six filters. The filters were made of ball clay and flour. They all were also impregnated with silver. The silver is used as a bacteriaside to kill the e.coli. The six filters varied with grog (flour and some ball clay) to clay content and the molar amount of silver applied. The work was fairly successful. Only two of the six filters broke and they can be fixed.
The work done included arsenic, silver, and e.coli tests on filtered and non-filtered water. The flow rate, pressure, and pH were tested on the filters as well. The fixture set-up was sufficient and only small adjustments needed to be made. The main problem faced by the group was the varied pressure from the faucet. It varied greatly from 0-100 psi almost instantaneously (within seconds). This had to be monitored carefully since the filters were built to withstand only 0-20 psi.
Signing off from Guatemala,
Cassidy