Agua y Vida: Water as a Limitation and Key to Improving Maternal/Community Health

I ask those of you reading this to take a moment and reflect upon your daily relationship with water. Where did your last cup come from? Do you remember the last time you went to a restaurant and they provided you with a nice glass of ice water, free of charge, or even drank from a public water fountain? Or how about the time you came home after a long run and you just grab a cup and fill it with tap water?  If you did this in Quito, Ecuador, you would run the risk of infecting yourself with all types of water-born diseases and parasites. If you live in various parts of the Amazon Rainforest, such as the communities of Pumpuentsa and Kurintsa, and drink the water, you ARE ingesting harmful water organisms.  But isn't the Amazon one of the last places in the world where the air is still fresh, the soil is pure, and the water exists in a pure abundance, you might ask?


Unfortunately, as discussed in the previous post, river water in most parts of the jungle is dangerous.  When it doesn't rain, women often go to the river early in the day to collect water to be used for drinking, cooking, and washing.  Both Kurintsa and Pumpuentsa have a water pump system built by the municipal government years ago. They are systems that require diesel oil to power a motor that pumps water from an underground source and delivers it via pipes to only half of the families in each community. Due to a lack of capacity building and education about the systems, people do not know how to repair the system should it get damaged.   Last April, a branch fell and damaged a pipe connecting the system. It has not been fixed since then, meaning that 271 people have been without pumped water and thus forced to go to the river to collect it from the stream. At 4 pm, families usually make the journey to bathe and wash clothes in the river. Much of this washing is done with soap full of chemicals, making the water foggy and full of suds. Not to mention the contact made with various human and animal wastes.

A comparison of various water collected from the river. The bottle on the far right is purified water brought from outside, or what most people drink in towns and cities. The water in the pots is collected from the river at one of the cleanest times of day.

This water was collected from the river at 1:30, before people bathe, wash clothes, etc. in the afternoon.

Bottled and potable water from "outside" the jungle in comparison to its river counterpart.

In the rainy season, this spring provides people with water in Kurintsa. It is unclear as to how clean it is, as the soil could possibly be contaminated with human waste. In the drier seasons, this spring dries up.

 An abandoned and broken water pump, installed by who knows what development organization in the 90s. It hasn't worked for years, largely due to the fact that no one taught people in the community how to fix the system.

 Local [temporary] solutions for local problems. When we were in Pumpuentsa in early June, we discovered that the community water pumping system had been broken since around the last time we were in the community (April...we didn't break it, btw). The municipal govt has not taught people how to fix the system, so many families have had to collect from the river, OR if they're "lucky" and have tin roofs, they have fashioned systems similar to the one I replicated for us in the community.

It is nearly impossible to improve maternal and child health (let alone health in general) when contaminated water causes so many basic health problems that are easily preventable and treatable. Water is a right. But it appears that some people have more access to these rights than others. Whether they live in the cities and can buy bottled water, have the water truck make weekly deliveries, own filters, or tin roofs, clean water is a scarce resource.  Which in the case of the Amazon Rainforest, seems quite ironic, as water itself exists in abundance. As a part of the Jungle Mamas/Ikiama Nukuri women's health program I'm working on at Fundacion Pachamama, our fabulous team is currently working with the communities of Kurintsa and Pumpuentsa to empower them to come up with long-term solutions to these issues. We have been working with people in the trained birth attendant workshops in teaching them about prevention, treating diarrhea (e.g. oral rehydration prep.), prevention, while simultaneously recognizing the interconnectedness with water.  In July, we have a community grant proposal writing workshop planned, to arm community members (both men and women) with the capacities necessary to create project plan(s) and seek funds to actively search for their own solutions.  Stay tuned for updates!

Organic Dry Toilets in Pumpuentsa

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. I had started this blog entry way back in March, and have decided to finish it, keeping in mind that I have much more updating to do. In the meantime, enjoy!

Here are some photos of the latest trip we made to Pumpuentsa to build one dry composting toilet as a pilot project. This project wouldn't have been possible without the technical expertise and creativity of Chris Canaday, Conservation Biologist and Promoter of EcoSan. For more information on dry toilets and the work he does, please visit his blog here.  There have been great sanitation problems in Pumpuentsa, largely due to an increase in population and thus contamination of natural resources: largely water and soil.  In the past, Achuar families lived farther away from each other and more dispersed throughout the land, but since the creation of airstrips, the spatial organization in the community has concentrated people around the strip.  This puts greater pressure on their land, especially when it comes to the elimination of human waste.  There are no (functioning) toilets or outhouses, so most people deposit their waste beyond their gardens, which contaminates the soil and then the water they drink from the river.  Some years ago, the municipal government installed flushing toilets for some families, but these systems relied on water pumping, which the community did not have. So, many of these toilet systems have been used as storage rooms. Thanks local government, for the infrastructure-without-education-or-capacity-building!

In March, we worked with Chris to install a pilot organic dry toilet, which separates human waste into two parts: urine is redirected through a funnel to create a nitrogen-rich fertilizer while fecal matter is deposited into a rice sack and covered with ash or dry material, which prevents flies from laying eggs and creating an unpleasant smell. After 6 months of resting in a dry location, the contents of the rice sack are completely converted to re-usable soil material! Seriously, check out Chris' site linked earlier in this entry to see some of the cool projects he has done!

Marta stands before the finished dry organic toilet product! She is happy and she and her family have been using it ever since! Hopefully the rest of the community shows interest in this pilot project enough to create a proposal for it! (to be explored further).