Write your agenda in pencil, not pen.
It seems fitting in the country of one of the greatest water works known to man that we should embrace the theory of going with the flow. This has been an incredible learning experience of how to embrace the importance of human relationships and to not feel as though every minute of our day has to be planned out perfectly. Additionally, it is exciting is to see how all of our endeavors are actually falling into place to create an exciting story that we can share with the world on behalf of WaterStep in Panama.
Now for an update!
Sunday, our day off, Natalie and I had planned to go tour the canal. Fun fact: Nat's Uncle Bud was actually stationed here in Panama for a while, and we wanted to get some good pictures to show him in comparison to how the canal and city looked from when he was here. However, the price of taxis to get to the actual canal was too high, so we opted instead for seeing a different, less famous area called the "Causeway".
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The Causeway is a long road leading from the city up to the canal that was actually made of the debris not used to make the Panama Canal. And speaking of debris, the city sure has a lot of it. Which was powerful to see, because it really gave us some weight behind the importance of our health and hygiene training we have taught to over 125 kids this past week.
Below is a the school that Niku, a staff member at QLU, installed an M-100! It's called la escuela primera Guillermo Patterson, in the part of the city called Mocambo. We were able to go to this school, just 25 minutes outside the city, which is located on top of a mountain, uphill of the Panama City junk yard and landfills. We met with the teachers and talked with them how they liked the M-100, if it worked well, if they understood how it worked. We discovered that the M-100 was being used very often, but there could be a greater capacity of potable water as soon as they were able to get some bigger tanks to catch rain water. Also, we saw that they were still buying bleach, and Niku is going to teach them how the chlorine by-products from the M-100 can do the same job a bottle of Clorox can... for free!
But we haven't just worked with kids! As a part of our initiative in Panama to build relationships to create an awareness of social responsibility and sustainable change, we have been spending a lot of time at Quality Leadership University to be with the students and talk with them about why we do what we do. One way we have done this is by working at the QLU annual Job Fair, where about 25 major companies, like Dell, Johnson&Johnson, Proctor&Gamble, come in to the University looking to hire students and alumni. As job seekers approaches our table, at first they would be a little dismayed at our non-profit status of looking for volunteers, but as we would continue to share our mission and philosophy, they became very engaged and ask us many questions.
So many people can not believe that the M-100 can purify 38,000 liters in one day at full capacity! Especially when they see how small it actually is!
We are very excited for this Saturday, where we will be hosting an M-100 build to train QLU staff, students and community members how to build a two-tank system, learn about a little plumbing, and especially social responsibility and community development. We have our demo parts already to go!
Traveling a bit and learning more about how immediate the need for potable water and sanitation is needed in Panama, we look forward to seeing what will happen within the next few days. Nat and I have less than a week left, but we are confident in that time WaterStep will be a presence in Panama in collaboration with QLU and the Fundacion Pro Ninos de Darien that has a strong relationship to work together for Aqua Potable para Panama!
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