My Work

So yeah...I actually have been working down here, although I'm sure to most people it seems that I'm just sort of on a vacation, which I guess at times it pretty much feels like I am, because I love what I'm doing here. Anyways, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before or not, but I did the topographic survey of where we are going to be laying the pipeline with another volunteer a little over 2 weeks ago. There are a few hurdles I am going to need to engineer out of the way, but overall I was happy with the results I got from the topography. I'm going to try and see if I can get the excel spreadsheet up here so you guys can see the lay of the land. I also made a digital copy of my community map which I'll try and get up here too.

In these last few weeks of January, and maybe the first couple weeks of February, I have to make a visit to each house in the community for an little interview about their water usage and health problems. The interviews will be conducted with the Doñas (or woman of the house) of the houses, as they are the ones who are home during the day and they are the ones who give the most reliable answers. Here are all the questions I will be asking:

General Questions

1. What's your complete name, including any nicknames. (Most people here never go by their real name, they only go by their nicknames...for example, my host mom's real name is Máxima, but everyone calls her Maritza. I think maybe only one time I've heard her called Máxima. Also my project partner is called Zenón, but everone calls him Papi.)

2. How many people sleep here and what are their names, ages, and sex? (In order to get a more accurate population estimate we ask how many people sleep there as opposed to how many people live there. This gets away some of the confusion of "living" as many people will consider themselves as living somewhere even though they don't sleep there.)

Finances

3. What is your family's occupation, or how do you earn a living? (The majority of people in my community are farmers, with a few teacher and other odd jobs. There are a few people who receive money from people living in the states. Believe it or not this is actually one of the top three sources of income in the DR.)

4. If you are a farmer what do you grow? (The people in my community are very big Cacao farmers, where chocolate comes from)

5. Do you have any other sources of income?

Health

6. Who has been sick in the last 3 months? (Instead of asking, "Has anyone been sick in the last 3 months?" we ask "who" has been sick, because if we asked it the other way they would automatically just say no. It's still very likely that they will say no one has been sick because they don't want to look bad in front of you."

7. What have they been sick with? (If they do admit to anything, they will say Gripe, which can range from a cough/cold to the flu.)

8. Has any child 5 or younger had the cold or diarrhea in the pas 15 days. (This question is targeted at children 5 and under, as this is the crucial age range where serious health problems occur and is where we are trying to get the most improvement.)

Environment and Sanitation

9. Where does the water that you use in your house come from? (A lot of people get their water from the nearby river, others buy it from a truck that they call)

10. If it comes from a truck, how much do you pay per month? (Since a lot of people pay for the water I added this question to find out how much money they would be saving once the aqueduct is built)

11. How many hours do you take each day to get water?

12. How much water do you carry in one trip?

13. Is the water that you drink different from the water that you go and find? (I added this one in there because a lot of people in my community buy bottled water for drinking.)

14. Do you purify the water before you drink it? (This is for people who don't buy bottle water.)

15. What method do you use to purify it? (Common methods are adding bleach, boiling it, and more rarely, filtering.)

16. What do you do with your garbage? (Most people just throw it out their backdoor, others burn it. There are some communities that a truck comes around, but I have yet to see one in mine. This is something that still really bothers me and is going to be the hardest to change. People here just don't see the impact that littering and polluting has.)

17. How often do you wash your hands? (Most people will attest that they are always washing they're hands since they do dishes and laundry, but through observation, rarely do people wash their hands after going to the bathroom and before eating.)

18. Do you have a latrine? (It seems as though most people in my community have latrines, some even have bathrooms in their house)

19. Is it in good or bad condition? (This is so I can get a rough estimate of how many latrine I may or may not need to build in the future.)

20. In your opinion, what are the basic problems related to health and sanitation in the community? (This should be the most interesting since it is very open-ended.)

Observations

21. Is the floor made of dirt, cement or something else? (From my few visits so far, it seems that most people have cement floors.)

22. Is the roof made of concrete, zinc or wood? (I would say the majority here have zinc, with concrete coming in second, and wood being third. We'll see if I'm right.)

23. Is the kitchen in the house or separate? (From what I've seen so far the majority of people have kitchens in their houses, although there are still plenty that cook on a fire outside their house.)

24. How many rooms are there for sleeping? (This is to get an idea of how crowded the living situation is.)

Ok...well there you have it, I actually do work here! Stay tuned for the results of the community diagnostic, in a few months or so.

My Community Map


My Topography



Yeah and that was done old school with an abney level...we don't have GPS or lovely digital instruments here.

And the elevations on the topography more or less coincide with the distance on the community map.

Next I get to design the aqueduct, which should be interesting.