This week we learned a lot about some of the methods that water treatment plants use in order to maintain certain regulations and standards when it comes to drinking water and non-potable usage. We learned that the actual costs of these treatments exceed any amount that an individual can actually pay to treat their own water source. We talked a lot about how people attempt to attack this issue individually when it would be much more effective on a community level. In addition, we were able to conduct these treatment methods and collect data on the effectiveness of these tests at a household level. We found that in order to get potable results, we would have to conduct pH, colilert, petrifilm, conductivity, and turbidity tests to determine the risk level of our water source. These tests do not cover the entire basis for safe drinking water regulations, however if gave us insight into the difficulty of conducting these tests alone. In order to determine the results of our water source, we had to spend hours conducting tests and gathering results which took over a day! This is horrible because households are often not able to spend all this time treating their water because they have other burdens, and then they also have to wait to see if all their tests even lead to safe drinking water! (Below is a picture of tests that we took on Friday and were able to collect results on Saturday!)
This week, we were also lucky to have the opportunity to meet with Cantaro Azul again and learn all about their disposal systems as well as a new treatment model that they will be using in order to treat and provide water to some nearby areas! It is a very interesting model that utilizes natural surroundings to treat water sources! Additionally, we were able to meet with Tseinan and learn about cleft lip palate and the many struggles that the community and families from different areas have in seeking medical attention.
We spoke about the sanitation issues that some of these families have due to the lack of safe and available drinking water and how the lack of water often leads to a unclean atmosphere for the bottles and spoons used to feed children with cleft lip palate! Often, the problem is not as simple as it seems! Although it may seem like we need a device to solve this medical issue, the real issues are more centered around the families lifestyles and their availability to safe drinking water! We often have this “big idea” or savior complex where we think one invention or idea can solve all the issues these communities are facing, however the issues are far more complicated and require more attention and time than a quick big idea fix! This week has been such a great learning experience and has given us time to implement some of the things we have learned so far so I am super grateful to these organizations that made the time to meet with us and to the Professors!