¡Mi Tercera Semana en Mexico!

 

Lunes – Tseinan

Monday we kicked off the week with visiting this non-profit called Tseinan, smile in Tzotzil, an indigenous language. This NGO focuses on helping children with cleft lips in indigenous communities, connecting them to surgeons, dentists, and the treatment they need. Tseinan has help over 180 children around Chiapas! We have a partnership with Tseinan where EDES students work on designing solutions some of their issues. We presented design projects to Tseinan as a part of our visit and scoped out future projects for this coming year.

 

Martes- Water Collection and Brita Destruction

Tuesday, for CEVE 314 we all visited the near by lagoon to collect water to perform a water cleaning and disinfecting project.  We collected 10 gallons of water from the lagoon using string, a bucket, and a funnel to poor the collected water in water jugs.  For EDES 350, my team and I took apart the Elite Britta Faucet Filter to learn about its components and decipher how it is manufactured. This required the use of electric hand saw, and a lot of force. I found the activated carbon filter really cool.

 

Miércoles- El Encuentro

Wednesday we visited Cantaro Azul and a park called El Encuentro. At Cantaro Azul we met Julio, a biologist who works on testing the quality if water from sources and water systems set up in Chiapas. After learning about their water testing methods, Julio, and Merce, took us took us to park called El Encuentro. El Encuentro is park focused on preservation, and sustainability partnered with Cantaro Azul, Isla Urbana, and other non-profits. Within the park they have a casita de Agua where these non-profits have been able to test out their devices. They have a dry toilet system, as well as a waste water system for their wet toilets that leads to fertilizing their plants.

 

A big project that is going on within El Encuentro is this multi-stage filtration system to clean the water from the river that flows through the park. This filtration system is up hill of the river, so the first part of this system is using a solar pump to bring water upwards into a tank.  Then the water sent to a large dynamic filter with layers of large pieces of gravel. Then the water trickles down to an ascending stage where the water goes through a set of smaller gravel and into a third area with finer sediment and sand. In the photo on the left, Julio is showing us the sediment used on the 3rd stage and how the water quality has changed after the first two stages.

 

 

 

Jueves- Testing

 

Thursday, was a day focused on testing various water cleaning methods using moringa powder. My team and I tested the effects of mixing different amounts of moringa powder in water to see if it could create flocs of microorganisms that could then be strained out of the water.We tested the turbidity of the water before and after each test, as well as the effect of a PNG water cleaning powder, and allowing the water to simply settle on its own.This experiment showed us the difficulty of truely cleaning water, and made us appreciate P&Gs product.

 

 

 

 

Viernes- More Testing!

Friday, set out water bottles filled with lagoon water, and different amounts of lime juice to perform a SODIS,  Solar Water Disinfection, experiment. The UV rays from the Sun can kill pathogens and microorganisms in water if exposed long enough. We took tests on the water  before and after the treatments.

 

 

 

At 4hrs in the sun we examined the water for the presence of coliforms doing a Colilert and Petrifilm test. The photo below shows the Colilert test. If the test tube turned yellow, coliforms are present, if yellow and florescent, then E.Coli is present.We found that the sample with the most amount of lime juice contained E. Coli, where as the other samples did not (Very unusual).

 

 

Over the last couple of weeks we have discussed a lot about water availability, quality, and treatment in Mexico City and San Cristobal de las Casas. Something that has really stuck with me on these topics is how fortunate I am to have such a large access to clean water at home. I use water without a second thought in the US, whereas here water is scarce and valued so much.  It is one thing to have access to water and another to have access to clean and safe water. To help these communities with limited access to water, nonprofits have worked hard to develop solutions such as rain harvesting systems, ceramic filters, UV water systems and more, most that are low cost, effective, and sustainable. I have grown to really admire the work these organizations do through this study abroad experience, and hope to one day be able to provide help to these communities as well.

 

 

Sabado – Cañón del Sumidero

 

 

Domingo- Arcotote y Cena Final