The Aqueduct

Sorry I haven't been posting lately, but I just haven't felt very motivated, and in all reality, nothing really exciting has been going on. Just the same old trips to Santiago, hanging around my site and what not. In the meantime, though, I have had my first overnight visitors. The first one being Maryam, one of my best friends who lives not too far away, and the other two which were described in the previous post.

Also, I have been working hard, not physically enduring work, as construction on the aqueduct has not begun yet, but technical work. I have completely designed the aqueduct. I also have completed the budget. The grand total comes to RD$1,363,169.06 or US$41,308.15. Fortunately for me, only RD$667,169.06 needs to be raised. The remainder of the project cost is what is contributed through the community working rather than it being a public works project, and from having an engineer from the Peace Corps. What the community is contributing is $396,000.00. This is based on 150 workdays, which includes 10 workers per day and food, which is what the community contributes. That falls under Manos de Obra, or workforce. My dollar (or peso) value in this project is RD$300,000, which unfortunately I do not actually get paid. I get a measly RD$9,000 and some a month, or about US$270, which surprisingly goes a very long way. Wait, I actually just added up what I make for the 27 months that I'm here, and in total, it comes to a little less than $300,000, so that's not too far off. The budget does include a little bit of padding, as I would rather overbudget than underbudget, considering that prices of materials tend to increase, and sometimes significantly.

Now here comes the time that you thought I would start begging for money from you all, but fortunately for you guys I will be soliciting funds from the government here. Elections are in May, and around this time the local governments tend to be a little more generous. Also, in my region there have been many aqueducts built by Peace Corps in the past, so the local government knows we are serious and are usually more willing to donate funds. If we don't get funds from the local government, then we are going higher up in the ranks, and if necessary, we may have to write grants in order to obtain all the funds. So hold on to your wallets for now, as it will not be necessary. If you are itching to get rid of some money, wait for the future as I plan on doing a couple of other projects throughout my service that may or may not require help from you guys. Right now I'm planning on building some latrines and also there is a small youth group here that I would like to get money to buy musical instruments and maybe some sports equipment so that the kids have some more exciting things to do.

Right now I'm just pretty much sitting around waiting to hear from my boss who is setting up a meeting with the local government so the two other volunteers in the area and I can go and do presentations to solicit the money. He said it will be sometime in March, so it could be any day now. It may even be when my parents and sister are here (only 18 more days!!! I can't wait!) so that would be pretty cool if they got to see me do a presentation in Spanish and actually see me work. After that I just have to wait for them to cut the check, and then off we are to constructing. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I hope that sometime in April or May we actually begin digging the trenches and laying the pipeline.

I'm going to try and see if I could somehow upload files for everyone to see, because I feel some people might be interested in seeing the budget as well as my community diagnostic report and presentation.

Ok...that's it for now. I'll try to update more often. Upcoming events include a Pot Luck festivity at a volunteer's site near me, a friend's birthday in Santiago, my family visiting and a bola race (basically a hitch-hiking race across the country.)