Aqueduct Theory 101

Author's Note: This post is my most viewed post on the blog.  Due to the popularity, I've created another website with a ton more information about aqueduct design, construction, and maintenance. Check it out! 

http://aqueducts.blogspot.com/

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I realize that much of what I blog about is "the volunteer experience" and yet I haven't really talked too much about what it is I actually do around here.

My life is aqueducts.

Admittedly, before Peace Corps I knew nothing about gravity-flow water systems.  I'll go out on a limb and guess that most readers don't know much either (you don't count other PCV's).

Turns out not much has changed since Roman times, including the physics.  Replace your open-channel structures with PVC tubes and you've got the basic idea.

Panama is blessed with abundant rainfall (most of the year in the Bocas region).  The water falls into your neighborhood watershed where springs feed streams, streams to rivers, and rivers to oceans.  This water is collected and distributed to provide water to a community using gravity instead of pumps.

Here's an overview of a typical gravity-flow water system in Panama.  I'll take extreme liberties in painting a picture of how easy it is to design and build your very own water system.

Intake Structure
Normally those in the community are intimately aware of where the nearest spring is to the community.  As long as that spring has good flow all year long and isn't located close to any livestock, it may be a good potential source for your gravity-flow water system.  Build a concrete box or dam to collect water into your PVC tube.  That's your intake structure.  You'll also need to do a study of the topography to determine the size of your PVC tubes and the route from the intake to the storage tank.

Storage Tank
Most likely your source (spring or stream usually) won't be enough to provide around-the-clock access to water.  After a careful study including flow, a census of the community, and the projected growth you can determine whether or not you need a storage tank to buffer the daily swings in demand.  Most of the time you design a tank to fill at night when demand is low to provide water for the community during the day.  The tank is a big concrete structure that holds about 5,000-15,000 gallons depending on the size of the community (about 250 people average).

Distribution System
Now you need to bring that water from the tank to the community.  Again, a topographical study is in order to make sure pipes are size correctly and placed in the right locations.

Each house will have a connection to a main line, just like back at home.  There will be shutoff valves for lines to do maintenance work.  We'll stand around to shoot the $#!% and watch the one guy dig the trench just like home.  It's all the same, just without pumps and heavy machinery.  Easy as pie...

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Yes, I'm being facetious.  Part of the challenge is doing it with your community, which had a whole life they were living before you ever showed up.  People will be away getting firewood or food from their fincas.  You want them to come along on the journey because that sense of ownership is the difference between an aqueduct that works and one that falls into disarray.  Then there's funding and the complexities of design and building something in the jungle and social engineering and... you get the idea.  Easy as pie.

Comites de Agua

The second blog in my series on "what the heck Austin is doing down in Panama" focuses on water committees, another big part of the work I do as a volunteer.

Imagine a main line breaks around the block in the middle of the night.  You're without water, but you don't even know it because you're sound asleep.  Meanwhile, a crew works feveriously with flood lights to restore water.  You wake up, shower, enjoy your morning cup of coffee unknowingly.  Easy enough.

We don't really think about where our water comes from and the many people employed to make sure water always comes out of the tap.  You pay your bill every month and that's about the only time we really think about water.

Cut to an indigenous community in Panama.  Camera zooms from above into a ranchito where a few men gather to discuss the upcoming work day, how much money is in the account, and when the next collection will be.

That group of men is what keeps water coming out of the tap for the people of Calante.  They are why the aqueduct is a success story under a backdrop of so many failed development projects.

Merely dropping in a water system is not enough. It could be the most tricked out aqueduct on the block, with the most thoughtful engineering.  That aqueduct could still fail. It happens.  And when it does, you need a community ready to respond.  That takes training, or capacity building.  You train a team to be able to fix the system and manage funds from within the community so that long after the NGO or Peace Corps or local government aid leaves, that community is equipped to fully operate and maintain their water system.

Truthfully, I think I prefer committee work to actually building and designing aqueducts.  The process is slow.  Training adults with an equivalent education to about second grade back in the States takes time.  But during that time, I get to have conversations about geography and what type of animals live in the US.  While teaching community members how to fill out receipts, I get to explain why I'm here and that I have a brother back home.  While we discuss the process of maintaining a water system I get to learn about what's important to these people.  We talk about what I would see if I climbed over that ridge while we create a notebook for managing funds.

That's committee work.  That's building capacity.  And at the end of the day, I feel more hopeful about both the future of the water system and that of humanity.

Turning the Corner

I've gotten some feedback that my blog can be a little dark.  While I'd like to think that it's just an exploration of very real themes - poverty, environmental degradation, development - I fully appreciate the truth in that statement.  This is easily the hardest thing I've ever done.  While I feel my life before Peace Corps had been more stressful, I would say that never since I got to my site have I been pushed so hard emotionally, physically, or philosophically.  In other words, living with a group of people in poverty (extreme according to some economists' metrics) that don't exactly buy into the quixotic ideals of development work, that usually resist your weird ideas about health and disease transmission, that usually are just looking for a handout because it's easier than getting to know you as a person is... well... a big mind f$%#.

Add to the list your increasing insecurity about your own effectiveness, your value to the community, or even if you should be there in the first place and you've got yourself a fun mental journey.  Let's review the last year:

English Classes for Community	FAILED, interest lost after six classes
English Classes on Individual Level	PARTIAL SUCCESS, students left to pick coffee in Costa Rica
Health Promoter in Community	FAILED, interest lost after two meetings
Math Classes for Tienda Owners	FAILED, lack of interest
Health Charlas on Using Soap	FAILED, would rather spend money on other things
Health Charlas on Disease Transmission	IN PROGRESS
Reforestation of Creollo	FAILED, can't get seeds from agencies
Building a Sidewalk	FAILED, would rather go through local government (which I support)
Gardening	IN PROGRESS
Trash Cleanup	FAILED, "will only do it if I get paid"
Water Committee Work in Odabate	FAILED, no interest after two meetings
Water Committee Work in Notente	FAILED, no interest after three meetings
Water Committee Work in Altomono	FAILED, "will only work if I get paid"
Earthen Stoves Program	FAILED, children destroyed all stove prototypes by using them as target practice

Not exactly a pillar of motivation.  Their lack of motivation became a millstone around my neck.  After awhile I think I gave up on failing.  I was going through the motions, doing volunteer work, but my heart wasn't really in it.

Then I hit my one-year mark and a whole set of neurosis that I had been sowing and watering over the past year came into bloom.  What if I don't accomplish anything while I'm here?  I thought the community liked me, but wouldn't I get more traction if that was the case?  Do all they want is my stuff?  Am I not trying hard enough?  What could I be doing differently to be a better volunteer?  Am I a bad volunteer?  All my friends back home are doing exciting, important work that's really having an impact.  I'm suffering and for what?

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So yeah, I would say that's "fairly dark".  Then I went back into site... and stayed there for over a month.  The first couple of days were rough, treading water in a sea of doubt.  Then, coincidentally, on the eve of my one-year anniversary, I took a deep breath and just... let... go.  Be here now.  And slowly but surely I turned the corner.

Over the past month, I've regained the wind in my sails.  I got my second wind.  I have the wind to my back.  OK, I'm making light of a liminal moment in my service.  But in all seriousness, it has been a sea change.

I'm getting traction on water committee work in three other communities, including successfully collecting dues in Solaite.  Calante's water committee initiated their first work day without my prodding.  In addition, we now have enough money in the coffer to justify opening up a bank account in Chiriqui Grande.

I had a great meeting with the community to discuss the status of the latrine funding (which is fully funded. Big thanks to everyone) and to discuss other project ideas.  They are extremely excited about computer literacy classes I'll be starting in December as well as a world map mural on the wall of the school.

In my free time, I've learned how to make a chacara (woven bags that are indicative of Ngabe culture), earning campo cred from the ladies. I helped haul creollo (dense hardwood) in a junta, earning campo cred from the men.  I finally solved some nagging pressure issues on the Calante aqueduct and taught four kids about their aqueduct in the process.

My muchacho English students called from Costa Rica to wish me well and share how things were going.  We had half the conversation in English.

And, maybe most importantly, I've had a lot of really great conversations with community members, conversations that have transcended asking for regalos and have led to hopes and dreams, family, and the things we share in the human experience.

And I have seen a shift in them, a new comfort and ease around me, maybe even signs of respect.  I may not speak much Ngabere, but a smile is pretty universal and that's enough for me to feel good about this next chapter in my service.

A Few Favorite Albums

After spending over a year in site, I thought doing an album review would be appropriate.  Without access to iTunes, Rhapsody, or Pandora, you come to appreciate, skip over, or realize gaps in your nearly static music library.  That being said, two albums surface to the top.  One being my "Best New Music" (new being relative) and the other being my "Oldie but a Goodie."


Arcade Fire
The Suburbs


From Pitchforkmedia.com:


Arcade Fire never aim for anything less than grand statements. That quality has played a huge role in making them very, very popular; it's also their greatest weakness. Funeral was wracked with agony and grief, but what made it one of the transcendent records of the 2000s was that it avoided easy answers. It proposed that the fight of our lives is just that, a fight, but a winnable one. But when they turned that same all-or-nothing intensity outward on Neon Bible, otherwise propulsive and elegant songs were sometimes bogged down by overblown arrangements or pedantic political statements. You'd figure an album bluntly called The Suburbs that focuses on The Way We Live might repeat some of Neon Bible's worst tendencies. Instead, it's a satisfying return to form-- proof that Arcade Fire can still make grand statements without sounding like they're carrying the weight of the world.  More...

Paul Simon
Graceland


I can't cop out and link to someone else's review since this album was released in 1986.  The short of it is the album combines incredibly catchy melodies with thoughtful lyrics and worldly sounds.  It's got just enough edge to never fall into the chasm of most pop, where music mainstreams for a spell and than dies a quick, painless death. Instead, I keep coming back.  Rainy day, throw on Graceland.  Not sure what music I'm in the mood for, throw on Graceland.  It's a solid album and it doesn't hurt that I grew up listening to it, so there's a certain nostalgia attached as well.  For those reasons, Paul Simon's Graceland will forever be in my "rotation."

A Few Favorite Books

I'm certainly better read than when I arrived almost 16 months ago.  The truth is that it's hard to work during rainstorms, which Panama tends to have a lot of.  Couple that with a life free of office email, Facebook, cell phones, and TV and what you're left with is a huge expanse of time.  Lucky for me, the volunteer lending library is awesome.  I've been able to completely bypass Nora Roberts and tackle some 50 books ranging from development work to the intricate histories of bananas, coffee, the Chicago World Fair, and Mormonism.  Below are a my favorite or "must-reads" in fiction and non-fiction.


From New York Times September 4, 2007:

Junot Díaz’s “Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. It is funny, street-smart and keenly observed, and it unfolds from a comic portrait of a second-generation Dominican geek into a harrowing meditation on public and private history and the burdens of familial history. An extraordinarily vibrant book that’s fueled by adrenaline-powered prose, it’s confidently steered through several decades of history. More...

From New York Times October 5, 2008:

The environmental movement reserves a hallowed place for those books or films that have stirred people from their slumber and awoken them to the fragility of the planet: Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” Bill McKibben’s “End of Nature” and, most recently, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Thomas L. Friedman’s new book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” may lack the soaring, elegiac qualities of those others. But it conceivably just might goad America’s wealthiest to face the threat of climate changeand do something about it.  More....


I don't want the other great books I've read (or reread) in Panama to slip through the cracks, so here are some other books to check out:

Development-Themed
Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson
The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier
Power Politics, Arundhati Roy

Other Non-Fiction
Natural Capitolism, Paul Hawken & Amory Lovins
The Devil & the White City, Erik Larson
Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
Banana - The Fate of the Fruit the Changed the World, Dan Koeppel
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Outlier, Malcolm Gladwell

Fiction
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Persig
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
My Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Tinkers, Paul Harding

Independence Day, Flag Day

On November 3, 1903, Panama declared independence from Columbia.  They had actually declared independence once before from Spain in 1821, but it was more of a separation than independence given Columbia's occupation in Panama. (Some could say that Panama wasn't really off to the races until the US handed over the canal and all military bases in 1999, but that's outside the scope of this blog).

In Calante, Independence Day celebrations were surprisingly similar to back home.  A big meal was prepared for everyone.  Kids spent the morning doing sack races, relay races, and musical chairs.  At the end of the day, it was the adults' turn for fun.  Calante hosted a baile, or dance, at the Casa Comunal with music blaring until 4am.

Flag day was basically rinse and repeat.  The kids participated in more races.  Meanwhile, the adults had their own competitions including tug-of-war and climbing up a greased-down log stuck in the ground.  The prize at the top: a bottle of rum and a few bucks.