Pure Water for the World

Cell : +504 871-5318

Work /Home: +1 (631) 458-1119

Week #18 - Cars and Worms

2006-12-06T15:37:00.001-06:00

What a productive week we had. After arriving back in Honduras, we got right on a bus and went to the taller to drop off their new cement vibrator. While there, we also gave a quick lesson to the taller workers on how to keep track of their expenses using Excel. It is amazing how much general knowledge we take for granted when speaking with people. Tuesday, we went to the Department of Health to test our sand sample for heavy metal and biological contaminants. We picked up the results on Wednesday, they showed the sand to be within acceptable limits and ready to use after being washed. Thursday, we spent all day looking for a truck and decided Fords use too much gas. Friday, we started interviewing people for the position of health promoter and site manager. We started taking our semi-annual dosage of deparasiting pills the very next morning.

So many times I wish I had a camera to capture a sunrise in a plane. I finally did.

"Doesn't everyone get a cement vibrator for thanksgiving in America?"

Learning to use Excel- "We have how much money left?"

It really is very clean sand.

It's big, it's tough and it costs about twice as much for gas as a Toyota diesel

She loved talking about worms and amoebas...

...and the next day we went out to buy some medicine.

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultant

As I said, once a turkey wrangler, always a wrangler

Cell : +504 871-5318

Work /Home: +1 (631) 458-1119

Week #17 - Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-30T15:54:00.000-06:00

I know this is a little late, but Happy Thanksgiving! For those of you who don't know, Thanksgiving is a holiday where your family meets to eat an overly large serving of turkey and potatoes and then exercise it off by shopping the rest of the weekend.

On very short notice, Rasa and I decided to go back to California to spend the holiday with my Dad and the 30 family members somehow related to him. It was fun, except for the hangover on Saturday. I wanted so badly to get some pictures of people lined up at 5am to be the first person into Wal-Mart but I didn't feel like waking up. I did get a great picture of traffic though, really makes me not miss living in LA. Even though Rasa and I spend 2 hours commuting to our worksite everyday, it just seems more fun with chickens on the bus. It was nice to see family though, we especially enjoyed the cooking and presentation my brother and his wife managed to pull off so graciously. Thank you, we appreciated your food and hospitability more than you could imagine. Going around the table everyone had to say what they were thankful for. For us it was a washing machine, a dryer, that crazy thing that cleans your dirty dishes, hot water, actually tap water we could drink, and of course an iron. I hope all of you had a great weekend, enjoy the pictures.

You got to love it to live it, every single day

What a tribe

The place settings

The toast

The beginning of my hangover

Halfway to my hangover, we all
decide to ride the beach cruiser

Did you ever have a family member who just never
threw anything away?

Good morning surprise complete with bed head hair

My Dad and I trying out our early Christmas
presents

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultant

http://www.purewaterfortheworld.blogspot.com/

http://www.robjkentjr.blogspot.com/

Cell: +504 871-5318

Work/Home: +1 (631) 458-1119

Week #16 - Visit to Santa Barbara

2006-11-22T12:17:00.000-06:00

This was a special week for us; Rasa and I hosted our first group of visiting Rotary members. This particular group of Rotarians is from Carroll Creek , Maryland and came here to meet the recipients of their Matching Grant (MG). PWW has already donated the start-up funds and this MG is to build and install about another 500 filters. This social tourism is intended to give the donating clubs in the US a connection to the communities and people they are helping to provide clean water too. It was a very busy week with early mornings, long days and late nights but I think Ed, Andy, Ted and Marty all had a great time and no Dysentery. So if this trip went as intended, I hope they will go home and talk about their experiences, interactions, and long days with fondness. Not to mention the late nights of Karaoke.

The arrival dinner and introduction to Imperial Cerveza

At the socialization, only the dog was asleep and all 55 people were rapt with attention

On the way home it had rained and one of the trucks couldn't make it up the mountain road

Ed needed a shower head; he didn't like the nozzle jet of water coming out of the pipe

Exchanging banners with the local Rotary club in Santa Barbara

Nothing quenches the thirst better than fresh coconut juice

Handing out gifts from the CC Rotarians to the local kids

Our all-star line-up!

Hard at working making their first filter. Where is Marty?

Rotary Club Carroll Creek - 11/06

Singing "My Way" by Sinatra, and they were actually great

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultant

Cell: +504 871-5318

Work/Home: +1 (631) 458-1119

Week #15 - Sand

2006-11-15T23:05:00.000-06:00

This week was a great week! After having stood the cable guy up twice when he didn't show up on time, we finally got our internet installed on Monday. Tuesday was our weekly Rotary meeting with a twist. Wednesday was another big success, the taller received their first payment from MAMUCA and we identified a sand source for our filter media. Thursday, we spent at the taller training them on how to prepare their sand and install filters. Friday was my birthday and we celebrated it with our Peace Corps friends eating pizza with anchovies and olives.

I have another blurry picture of them hanging from our upstairs window. Notice the termite trail in the upper left of the picture.

Here is Augustine talking about the new addition to the Rotary house and coincidently, all the beer has been finished

The taller receiving their first check

The San Juan River and it's amazing sand

Washing the sand with a drop of bleach to kill all the e-coli

Installing our first filter so the taller workers can now have clean water

This is an example of the four layers of sand that is used as our filter media

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultant

Cell: +504 871-5318

Work/Home: +1 (631) 458-1119

Week #12 - The conference

2006-10-26T10:42:00.000-05:00

We spent a weekend at the conference talking about water and the rest of the week driving around checking the on the results of our work. Saturday was the big day for Rasa and Amy and they both did great. Rasa spoke on education and Amy on what clean water is. Monday and Tuesday, we were in Santa Barbara to hire a site manager and health promoter to start working on the next grant there. Tuesday night we met Gerardo in Tegucigalpa for dinner and formerly ask him to join PWW as our country director starting 04 December. Wednesday night we spent in Danlí for a visit and social dinner for the staff there, we ended up going out dancing instead. The rest of the week, we were back in La Ceiba to see our taller pour their first filter! Dave went back home to the DR on Saturday.

Rasa being brilliant and to think, she was a nervous wreck all day

The panel fielding questions about the Ministry of Health's absence of a national water campaign

Nineth getting her hands dirty learning how to do a filter installation

Nineth and Francisco discussing the next steps for a community socialization

The gang out to welcome Gerardo to PWW

La Ceiba's first filter, which we later had a problem removing from the mold

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #11 - The Mosquito Coast

2006-10-18T02:03:00.000-05:00

Over the next couple of days, I will be sending out pictures of Bob Griffin's Rotary group and their visit to Mocoron and Mosquitia. Rotary and Pure Water will be working to bring these Mosquito Coast communities clean water. The purpose of these pictures is to show the extreme conditions and challenges involved in accomplishing our project goals. This is a pristine UNESCO site in need of great assistance so if you want to do a humanitarian tour please let me know.

Here is a picture of the Mocoron airport runway. There is only one 'path' connecting this village to the rest of Honduras.

This is an abandoned, cracked water tank build by SANNA (agency in charge water supply and sanitation). The village currently gets all of its water from the local river.

And this is that same river used for water, which households also use as a toilet and trash dump.

This is a typical community outside Mocoron, in rainy season AND dry season. This village was about 20 minutes from the ocean on the North Coast. (15°18'37.25"N, 83°34'55.15"W)

This is how you get around if there is no boat available.

The kids are constantly in the water, exposed to all sorts of parasites and skin diseases.

This is an example of an outhouse (left side) next to house. Every time someone leaves a house here, odds are they are stepping in their own waste.

This is the main street of the village Kruta. There are always chickens and pigs running around and people without shoes walking right next to them.

This is how rice and laundry are set out to dry. This is a great area to grow rice except for the lack land needed to dry it after harvest. The laundry is also hard to dry because it never stops raining.

Here is a more remote house. The further you travel from a town center, the more shanty-like they become.

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #10 - Relationships

2006-10-12T13:19:00.000-05:00

We started this week off with a surprise inspection by Rotary International and it almost made us late to pick Dave up in San Pedro Sula. On Tuesday, we finally got Dave to go to the local Rotary meeting; we let him do the talking this week. Wednesday was wasted day for work after the person we were supposed to meet didn't show up. Thursday we finally to the MAMUCA people out to lunch where we accomplished more than in two weeks of emails and phone calls. That night we had the big thank you dinner with Bob Griffin and his group. Friday morning, after the fridge of beer, we all went to the airport at 4:45am. Dave ended up not leaving to 11:30am.

The taller staff and local Rotary members

Rasa finally got to take a night off speaking Spanish

Our big meeting on Wednesday

MUMACA are our friends now because we fed them

After the presentations, the dinner went great

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #9 - Learning Spanish

2006-10-03T17:20:00.000-05:00

This was a tough week with Spanish school and homework, Rotary meetings, finding sand, checking on the taller , and painting our house. I spent the week walking around like a corpse in pain after my first workout. At our weekly rotary meeting, I tried out my Spanish and said I was the wife of a Rotarian. I need more practice. We did another trip out to the taller to check it progress, no tools yet but it has a roof. We also made it up to the sand source only to find out it is too coarse to use. I will have to use Google Earth to search for some better sources. And we started to dig through the piles of paint cans looking for that perfect color to paint our walls.

Finally joined the gym and plan to use its pool often

Lost my prepared speech in Spanish

The taller during rainy season

Gathering a sample of sand to test for coliform

This is where all those returned paint colors end up

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #8 - Community Integration

2006-09-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

This week was all about Rotary and getting to know our local club here in La Ceiba. Tuesday we attended our weekly meeting and met an American couple who retired here to start up an orphanage. Then the highlight of our week, we found a house without a single scorpion in it. We also sent two of our workers over to Trujillo for three days of training in how to make filters. Saturday day we went to 'help' at a Rotary workshop teaching other clubs in the district how to write grants. Then that night we attended the fundraiser dinner and had a Rotary friend invite us to join him and his family for their Sunday outing.

Waiting for our turn to speak Spanish at the Rotary meeting

The front (upstairs) of our new house

Lending moral support to the grant writing workshop

Teaching the newbies how to sieve sand

Fundraiser at the Golden Palace and great Chinese food

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #7 - House Hunting

2006-09-20T13:37:00.000-05:00

We finally moved to La Ceiba this week. On our last trip from Danlí, we brought with us the four large molds for the new La Ceiba project. The next day we started looking for houses and found our Spanish school. We go five days a week from 7:30 to noon and then work in the afternoon. Thursday, we had our big meeting with Rotary and MAMUCA to inspect the site where the filters will be built (taller). Friday, was Independence Day and we spent our day off mostly looking for a house.

The molds are almost as heavy as the filters themselves

This is our new school and maybe a potential home upstairs

Rasa showing off again

The future filter taller and the community workers

This is typical bathroom in rental houses, complete with scorpion

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #6 - Goodbye Danli

2006-09-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

After we dropped Dave off at the airport for his flight home to the DR, we drove back to Danlí and returned the truck. The next day we went strait to the taller to see how our new cement vibrator is working out and we found them working 7 days a week to catch up for lost time. We also created a checklist for everything we would need for the project start-up in La Ceiba. We also took advantage of the slow week to do some research for an upcoming water conference presentation. Then it was time for our going away party. We'll miss all our new friends in Danlí.

Going home but no soldiers at the airport this time

Vibrating cement to get out all the bubbles

A journal of all the filters delivered

Rasa doing research for her presentation

Our going away party

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #5 - Meetings

2006-09-05T11:03:00.000-05:00

Monday was an easy day of interviewing people in Santa Barbara for the position of site manager. The next day we were on the road again for a very bumpy six-hour drive to La Ceiba. Wednesday, we met with PCV Tania and fed her in exchange for her helping us with our health education program. The next morning we met another NGO who focuses on deep-water well installation as well as installing filters, it was a productive meeting. We were supposed to have our final meeting on Friday, and then on Saturday, but it finally happened Sunday morning. This left us just enough time to get Dave back to Tegucigalpa, on the other side of the country, for his Monday morning flight.

Dave conducting his forth interview of the day

A typically bumpy road on the way to La Ceiba

Peace Corps Volunteer Tania helping us out in La Ceiba

The filter factory of Living Water International

Our Sunday meeting with La Ceiba Rotary and MAMUCA

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #4 - A new country director

2006-08-28T14:45:00.000-05:00

PWW took a big step this week by hiring our new country director, Gerardo Martínez. We split the rest of the week working and driving between Santa Barbara and Choluteca. In Santa Barbara, we met with the very enthusiastic Rotary club and were impressed to hear each member took their family to do community socializations on the weekends. It was in Choluteca though that we saw one of the most rural communities to date, I'm sure the volcanic sand filters they use will be greatly appreciated there. However, none of this success would be possible without the Rotary members and Peace Corps volunteers doing the groundwork.

Santa Barbara filters waiting for a home

A Santa Barbara Rotary meeting

Touring a filter installation in Santa Barbara

with the Peace Corps volunteers

Our new country director during his interview

A Choluteca filter installation and education session

After a bath at the local well

Peace Corps Megan Lan contemplating sand

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

We started this busy week off with solving our cement vibrator problem and doing some water tests. David Stanley arrived on Tuesday and joined us for a community socialization. The next morning we set out for Trujillo , which meant we had to circumnavigate pretty much the entire country to get there. Thursday was spent gathering sand and unpacking filters from the shipping container. We spent the rest of the week with the Reeses planning how to deliver filters to a remote coastal village.

Week #3 - Hitting the Road

2006-08-20T11:58:00.000-05:00

One blue dot can keep you on the pot, e-coli (blue) and total coliform(red)

Pablo giving a socialization at the community of Coyolar

After 14-hours of driving

Our new sand source by the river, but not too close

1,000 plastic filters, 5,000 diffuser plates and 9 people who unloaded them

Introducing the filter to community leaders

Working lunch on the beach

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants

Week #2 - Learning the Ropes

2006-08-13T18:21:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how much an efficient operation depends on its procedures and how a small thing like the way you wash sand can make such a huge difference. This week, using a sand heavy with fines we installed 19 filters in two days versus 24 in one day when the sand was the proper size. After all the sifting, we took a day of rest and showed Don Mebus of Rotary International around. Then it was back to work constructing filters for the next three days. These guys turn them out like tortillas, 1536 delivered so far this year.

He is very happy to have a truck so he didn't have to carry all this

I am washing sand and it is very, very, very tiring

Don Mebus visiting the filter construction yard

I really wish the electric cement vibrator didn't break

Rasa patching a leaky filter with cement

Robert J Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com

Rasa Siminkas Kent- rsiminkas@gmail.com

Wat/San/Health Consultants