The water truck moves slowly up the gently sloping hill, carrying 20,000 litres of precious but contaminated agua, to Buena Vista. It passes by a graveyard, with vultures lurking in the shadows of the few trees surrounding the many forgotten burial plots.
The road is unlike any you’ve ever seen – rutted, bumpy, with jagged rocks poised to shred a tire if the driver is not cautious.
As the truck reaches the poverty-stricken neighbourhood, Mestizo mothers and their children line the road, patiently waiting, clutching a few Lempira coins, hoping the truck will stop at their ramshackle little home. If not today, then maybe tomorrow.
The men are conspicuously absent; a few working, many looking for work and some who have given up their search for employment and drinking away what little they have.
The children are clean and happy, revealing big, beautiful smiles, even though they will never experience the lifestyle you and I enjoy. Most do not wear shoes.
The community of Buena Vista sits high on a hill on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, which is the capital of Honduras in Central America. It’s a poor city of about 1.2 million, where more than half live in poverty. This impoverished, Latin American country experiences high unemployment, out-of-control crime, and severe water shortages. Buena Vista suffers from them all.
Honduras has a population of about 9.5 million. More than one million do not have access to improved sanitation. Over 638,000 lack safe water. Diarrhea-related diseases kill over 4,000 children each day. Access to healthy water is a large-scale problem.
In the Buena Vista community, all the one- or two-room shanties have no running water or indoor plumbing, although most have electricity, a fridge and hotplate and, of course, a television. Some have chickens, indoors and out.
Crude but creative troughs catch rainwater from the roof and empty it into a large cistern behind the house, about the same size as the volume of a bathtub. When heavy rains come, they fill quickly. But it doesn’t rain as much as it used to.
The water trucks bring liquid survival. Refreshing to drink, but not entirely safe, even for those who grew up with contaminated water. The children suffer the most from recurring gastro-intestinal illnesses.
In 2019, our Fort Langley church arranged for a team of nine to visit Buena Vista to provide a means to clean, safe water. Ranging in age from young 20s to mid-60s, we would install bio-sand filters in homes, which would organically eliminate 99.9 per cent of harmful bacteria. This is an impressive number, but the water is still not safe to drink by visitors.
Our crew included an electrician, plumber, welder and builder; the rest of us enthusiastic volunteers. My skills are more office related, but you might consider me a Jack-of-all-trades.
We were hosted by Schools of Hope, an organization established in 2010 to partner with local public schools, their communities, as well as local governments and health units. Since 2016, they have installed almost 900 filters in homes and schools.
The process is surprisingly simple. Specialized plastic containers about the size of a typical garbage can are filled with sand and gravel. First, a layer of coarse, underdrain gravel is placed in the bottom, to catch sediment. Then a layer of finer separation gravel is arranged above, to keep the sand from sinking.
Then comes the hard part. Adding a thick layer of very fine filtration sand. But before pouring it into the container, every single grain must be wet. The sand is first poured into a tub, water is added, then kneaded and mixed, by hand, for 20 minutes.
It’s compact, heavy and unyielding. It rips apart fingernails and causes the muscles in your hands to twitch from the stress of mixing sand and water. It also gives you the smoothest skin your hands have ever had!
Difficult yes, but the local kids loved getting their hands dirty. They were always available to help mix the sand and water, albeit not for that long. But many hands, and a few smiling faces, truly make light work.
The water is drained, and the sand is poured into the container. Then a thin biological layer of bacteria is added. The filter is tested to ensure that the rate at which the water flows is correct. It’s then ready for use.
When any available water is poured in (and it can be quite disgusting by our standards), it’s filtered through the bacteria and sand. You open the spigot, and you have a stream of crystal-clear water, safe for Hondurans to drink. Not so good for you and me.
The filter life is at least 10 years and takes about 30 minutes to filter five gallons of random water. It will easily provide an entire household with fresh, clean drinking water.
Our team had one unfortunate experience that reinforced the importance of water, in at least one unique way.
Our hosts treated us to dinner in a fine restaurant one evening. On the drive over, it was interesting to note that every business had an armed guard out front. We were assured that we were perfectly safe because the guns contained real bullets, reserved for the bad guys.
Soon after our traditional Honduran meal, our tummies started rumbling. By midnight, most of us were making frequent trips to the bathroom. Whatever we had to drink at the restaurant was staging a full-scale attack.
And to make matters significantly worse, our giant-sized cistern under the carport had surrendered its last drop of water. Fortunately, we had a few 18-litre water jugs available, which helped us get through a very long night.
When Benjamin Franklin said, “When the well is dry, we’ll know the worth of water,” he was most assuredly thinking of places like Buena Vista, but it certainly seems appropriate in our unique situation at that time!
After 10 amazing days, our team was tired, sunburned, and ready to go home. We learned so much about each other, but we will never forget our new Honduran friends.
The people of Buena Vista had nothing we would consider valuable. And yet, they seemed so happy. They were content with what they had. They valued family and community. They got along well and helped each other out.
Perhaps there’s a few lessons there that we could learn.
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Brings back beautiful memories. Lived in Tegucigalpa for four years. Taught at the Elvel School on the hill Back in the early 70s. It would appear that the water situation has not changed much. Brings back vivid memories of dysentery. More good memories than bad though. Beautiful people. Beautiful country.