It is the dry season right now and it is hot and dry. The vegetation is turning brown and covered in dust, especially by the road sides. We have not had water in our rain water collection system in weeks and so we have been buying and hauling drinking water from a business in town.
There have been lots of fires around the area as well. It seems that many are started intentionally to try and keep the jungle growth back since this is the only time of the year when it is dry enough to burn. It is not unusual to see a fire burning along the road unmanned. It definitely poses a risk to the villages and some wooden shacks and houses with the thatched roof around Punta Gorda. Last week a fire got out of hand in the village of Eldridgeville, not far from our clinic, and the villagers had to work very hard to save 3 of the wooden, thatched roof houses.
Most of the villages are situated by a river and have at least one good well but the village of Dolores is isolated from any sizable rivers and does not have a good well. The villagers use rain water and a local spring which is piped into the village when it is flowing for their water supply. During the dry season, the rain water tanks are dry and they often struggle as the spring dries up. I took my team out to Dolores to see patients on Wednesday and instead of spending the night as planned after our clinic day, we had to move on to Otoxha because there was no water. Before we left the village, I wanted to see this spring that was so important as it is something we talk about but I had never hiked out to it. We walked to the other end of the village and then on a path up a hill into the jungle. There was a small creek coming from a very small pool of water surrounded by rocks. The water was barely flowing but there was a woman trying to fill her water bucket from it. As we walked back towards the village, I realized again how important access to water is and how thankful I am for "pipe water" which flows when you turn a handle.
 |
| Muddy Creek in Dolores |
 |
| Spring barely flowing in Dolores |
 |
| Hand pump at the well in Otoxha after my morning bath |
No comments:
Post a Comment