This week has been a blast (as it always is). Update from last week: my stomach has not been holding up super well, but still a great time nonetheless. It has been swell doing handstands in the villa and whippin up some fire meals. This weekend we went on an excursion to waterfalls and Montebello. Highlights of that trip: ooh pretty waterfalls, sat in a van for 7+ hours, saw the sunset from Guatemala, and finally got cell service when we stepped into Guatemala. I was incredibly tired from waking up super early to go on the day trip, and then I was tired from the trip, and all I wanted to do when I got back to the villa was take a shower and go to sleep. However, I was so pleasantly surprised to be locked out of my room when I got back!!! I tried to get in through my window and we tried to pick the lock but nothing worked. I got to sleepover in Gwyneth’s room and I was finally let back into my room at like 1pm the next day. Then we went to the lagoon to collect some smelly water samples to run tests. We started the Colilert & petrifilm tests and tested the turbidity of the water. Yippee!
handstands in the villa with callum
CHEF KIANA
sunset from guatemala
waterfall!!!
trying to get into my room (unsuccessful)
out and about huzzah
On Friday, we visited El Encuentro and saw Cantaro Azul’s water treatment system. It was interesting to listen to Pablo talk about the pros and cons of each filter. There is no one size fits all because everyone has different lifestyles and cares to different degrees about cleaning their water. A lot of their designs depend on how people in the community interact with their technology. A takeaway from this week is that technology is cool, but is useless if the target audience doesn’t want to use it for whatever reason. This is why they have to think about things like how simple they make it to operate the treatment system. I’m excited to start our own water treatment experiments this week—hooray!
bruh 1 and bruh 2 at el encuentro
central water treatment system
cantaro’s different water filters
collecting water samples (yummy!)
team peeling moringa seeds