A day off in D.F.

WOW. it is Sunday and we have a day off!  It seems like whenever we are in Mexico we work 7 days a week so to have most of a Sunday off is GREAT.  We got up and had to search for breakfast as our usual weekend place doesn't open until 10 am.  We found a good place not too far from our hotel:  "Hotel Casa Blanca".  We then had a few hours of work to do.  We then went on a subway- walking adventure to the Frida Kahlo museum.  The subway in D.F. is great and it only costs 3 pesos!.  After 2 rides  we came to street level.  Then the guess was which way to walk, as the sun was directly overhead (hard to tell what was north).  We got our bearings and after a 20 minute walk we arrived, to stand in line for 45 minutes.


We spent a good 2+ hours there.  It was great but, most of her famous art was not on display there.  It was great to walk through her life and house.

This is part of her studio with her painting holder so she could paint in her wheelchair and lying on her back in bed!










Then, upon getting to the subway station (a new line) we had to buy smart cards to get our fair! $10 pesos.  Now I feel like I need to ride the subway a lot to amortize the cost. :)  Anyway we got our smart cards and were back at our stop (General Hospital) in no time.  It was well after 4pm and way past lunch time so we then ate a GREAT meal at this roadside cafe.

Jacob takes off tomorrow (Monday back to DC as there is no point for him to stay as his scheduled return was on 20 July and if we go go back to Tenango to finish the stove he would have only had 1-2 days there.

Local elections have interrupted our workshop....

We went to San Jose Tenango on July 3rd and are back in Mexico City now because of political unrest in that area. We started the cook stove workshop on July 4th, working with the masons to build the foundation for the stove. July 5th turned out to be a long day because the masons built the stove walls. It was after dark before they finished, but the walls hardened overnight and everything was set and ready to go the next morning. July 6th we arrived ready to build the fire boxes. We got as far as cutting the cardboard forms, setting them in the brick enclosure, backfilling them to their proper heights and putting a layer of cement on top of the backfill. The next steps were to set the fireboxes (firebricks, insulated firebricks and a wooden firebox chimney form) & pot stands in place and filling the cardboard firebox forms with perlite for insulation. The plan was to do those next steps on Tuesday, July 9th, after taking a couple of days off for local elections. The afternoon of the 6th, The Hunger Project worked with the promoters (the workshop attendees) to coordinate their activities after the workshop. At that time, they passed out the list of families from each of the four communities who are on the cook stove list.

But, “the best laid schemes of mice and men go often awry.” Elections were held on Sunday, July 7th. The results came in and the final count had the top two vote getters within 400 votes of one another, out of 7,500 cast. Monday night the losing party decided to show their dissatisfaction with dynamite and gun play, which made the national news here. The Hunger Project decided to pull out of the area completely and to wait until the vote is certified and the local community has calmed down before resuming the cook stove project. We are now in Mexico City and will meet at The Hunger Project Headquarters tomorrow to determine our next steps.

Stove craziness :)

Today we are still working on the final bill of materials and trying to get everything ordered.  Last night we were up until well past midnight recalculating the number of bricks we need because we were told that are a different size!

Yesterday afternoon we bought a lot of the tools we will need to build the stoves, as the community members don't have any tools.

We now have the bill of materials finalized and it is a busy time calling suppliers. As I would expect it is a non trivial matter to get all the supplies for 89 stoves to a remote community. Sometimes the shipping is more then the cost of goods.

I have had a gut issue for the past few days, but Grapefruit seed extract fixed it !  I am happy for natural cures to bad gut bugs.

It took me 4 tries to get a new cell phone SIM card (cell phone service is a monopoly, owned by the richest guy in the world).  The first time we went to TelCel they said they didn't have any SIM cards and come back in a hour of so,  We went back but no SIM's, We almost went through the same thing today. Trip 1 on card, trip 2, they have the card and it took 5 minutes to get it and get the phone working!!  Customer service doesn't matter!

After a long day we are in D. F.

Finally made it to Mexico City! It took 3 hours to get through passport control, and Customs! Our flight landed at about 2:40, and I was 4 pm by the time we got to our hotel!

We then took a good walk to grab some Dinner. I know I will sleep hard tonight, after getting up at 2:30 am for the 5am flight from Seattle.

Operations and planning for building 89 new clean cookstoves

Working hard to come up with a bill of materials for 89 cookstoves! 

The list has to include all the tools and disposable items! IE we have to assume that the family)s) have no supplies, or tools that are needed to build the stove. This no easy task!

The list includes items like duct tape, masking tape, cement mixing trays, hammers, tin snips rubber gloves... 

The challenge is to estimate how many of the building supplies can be shared.  In three of the communities 4-5 stoves will be built at the same time, however in one community 10 will be build together at once, so sharing tools becomes more difficult.  And everything has to be ordered and shipped in as the local suppliers can not handle the large quantities for this building project.

NEWS FLASH-- Gearing up to build 98 cookstoves in the rain forest of Northern Oaxaca

We are off to Oaxaca to install 98 clean cookstoves (June 22- Aug 12).

The challenge is coming up with a complete bill of materials and tools required, as we have to assume the communities have no supplies or TOOLS to build the stoves.

This includes things like; duck tape, measuring tapes, screwdrivers..... The nearest hardware store is 2-3 hours away, so one can not just "run over to" the store for parts and supplies!

Water for Humans Spring Newsletter: May 2013

WFH exists because of you!!! Thank you for your support.

This is what we have been up to since our last newsletter.
THE HUNGER PROJECT - Piedra de la Luz Pilot Project 
Water for Humans was in Mexico in January and February, working with The Hunger Project - Mexico (THP), to bring new technology to the Mazateca region in the northeastern, rural mountains of Oaxaca. We spent February 5 through February 20 in San Jose Tenango working in Piedra de la Luz. The goal was to complete two composting latrines (to stop ground water contamination, to eliminate the spread of disease vectors and to make compost for crops), two clean cook stoves (to reduce deforestation) and one 20,000 liter rainwater harvesting system (to store enough rainwater to last through the dry season) as a pilot project for five communities in the area. THP has been working with these five communities for several years. 

The efficient cook stoves were the most complicated and the most difficult to build. However, they were the most easily accepted new technology by the residents. We are now working on an easier and less expensive way to build them. Over 100 families in the area want one and we will plan workshops for knowledge and skills transfer. 

The rain harvesting system was the last thing completed before we left. The first rains (after we were gone) revealed some leaks that we were unaware of. The leaks were fixed locally and the Rotoplas containers are now filling up. We will be working with ATM, THE HUNGER PROJECT's housing contractor, to incorporate rain harvesting into the new housing design they are working on. This will make construction simpler and will reduce the cost. 

Although the latrines were the easiest to build, they were also the most difficult for the residents to accept. Dry, composting latrines are a totally new concept for this population and so far they have not accepted this technology to deal with human waste. The Hunger Project is working on ways to deal with this, either with lots of hand holding to gain acceptance or finding different technology to deal with the problem in a culturally accepted way. 

Currently, we are concentrating our efforts on the cook stoves. We will be working closely with ATM on rain harvesting and, we are working with The Hunger Project to evaluate human waste disposal alternatives. 

Improved Cookstove Program 
As an outgrowth of our work with the hunger project we are launching a new program to further develop our clean cook stove technology. You may ask why is a group focused on water now working on cook stoves? Well, efficient cook stoves reduce deforestation which reduces the impact of climate change and helps the forest produce more clean water. 

The stove boils five liters of water in 15 to 18 minutes with approximately 700 grams of wood. In addition, it uses small sticks that are about the diameter of one’s thumb. For a very hot fire, one adds many small sticks and for a cooler (simmering) fire, one uses less sticks. The use of small sticks eliminates the need to cut down trees because the stove runs on twigs, branches, and crop silage. Using this type of fuel greatly reduces the environmental impact and deforestation. 

Here are some of the advantages of our cookstoves over a single burner bio-char style stove:

• Much easier to cook meals for six people, three times a day
• Can continuously cook tortillas and three other items simultaneously
• Has no indoor air pollution because our cookstove exhausts to the outside of the house

This cookstove program is unique for several reasons. The stoves are specifically designed to meet the cultural needs of this population. It gives the household the ability to continuously cook tortillas while keeping a pot of coffee warm and being able to cook with two or three other pots simultaneously. Because of the remoteness of these communities (up to a three-hour hike from the nearest road), these stoves are built onsite with primarily local materials and locally trained labor. 

There are three phases to our stove program:

1. improve construction tooling to lower the cost and simplify the construction process; launch the initial phase of a social enterprise to deploy the stoves
2. develop a fully molded design that can be built by a casting method
3. to deploy the fully castable stove; establish a social enterprise

We foresee these three phases developing over the next 9 months. 

New Board Member - Chair 
We are very pleased to announce and welcome Charlie Cunniff as both a new board member and board chair. Charlie is passionate about both sustainable community led solutions and Oaxaca, Mexico. Charlie has a wealth of experience in growing small organizations into viable enterprises. Charlie is currently working for the City of Seattle in the Office of Economic Development. He focuses his time on green technology development for the city. 

Oaxaca State Finance Minister Update - We give up, Sort of!! 
After way too many months trying to negotiate with the water commission and the finance minister, our potential contract for evaluating the 100+ derelict wastewater treatment plants has been abandoned. 

However, on the upside, there is now a new finance minister and we are just starting negotiations with him and the head of the office of investment to help them evaluate wastewater treatment plant proposals for both their engineering and economic viability. The prior finance Minister, Sr. Cajiga, stepped down last month out of frustration. Adriana, the head of investment is working hard to hire us directly through her office. In addition to analyzing incoming proposals we will recommend a new state policy to have economic analysis (lifecycle costs, return on investment) part of all proposals. Requirements for investment in the water sector will be incorporated into the design. 

Geneva 
In January Rick was invited to Geneva Switzerland to speak at the international patent and trademark office about our work in Oaxaca. It was an interesting conference since from my prior work as an engineer/scientist I hold numerous patents. However, now I find that my work is much more “open source”. The conference was relatively small but had representatives from all over the world. My presentation was rather provocative since I stressed the importance of using technology to enable small communities to export goods and services versus buying goods and services from larger economic centers. I also stressed the importance of culturally appropriate technologies. Due to relationships built at this conference, we are exploring intellectual property and business opportunities with the emerging clean cook stove program with The Hunger Project - Mexico with international patent office representatives in Mexico City. 

GiveBIG - May 15, 2013 
We're excited that Water for Humans will, again this year, be part of The Seattle Foundation's GiveBIG campaign on May 15. GiveBIG is a one-day, online charitable giving event that benefits nonprofits in our community. May 15 is the third annual GiveBIG and donations made midnight to midnight (May 15) through our Seattle Foundation's website will be stretched further thanks to The Seattle Foundation and GiveBIG sponsors, who will match a share of every contribution. Start now by "Liking" us on Facebook! 

In addition, when you donate through GiveBIG, you could be randomly selected for a Golden Ticket that wins you a $100 Starbucks gift card and gives us an extra $1,000 from The Seattle Foundation & other sponsors! 

For more information, visit http://www.seattlefoundation.org/GiveBIG 

Nelly 



Nelly gives WFH a human face - something difficult to do when an organization is headquartered thousands of miles away.She makes sure that our community partners in Oaxaca - organizations like INSO and our government counterparts - have someone they can talk to. Nelly also provides us with critical, on-the-ground updates about the changing situation in Oaxaca. 


Want to volunteer and help Water for Humans? Just contact Rick RickM@WaterforHumans.org or Stan StanB@WaterForHumans.org 

Thank you!
Your support keeps Water for Humans moving forward. 

PS: You can stay in touch with the Water for Humans team by reading our blog or following us on Facebook - over 400 people already "like" WFH!