It’s the end of an era…
I’m very surprised by how quickly this month in Mexico went by — although, I definitely was feeling crunch time this last week as we finished up all our projects. Most of my time was spent doing readings for class discussion, conducting coagulation/flocculation or disinfection experiments, or prototyping our UVC sanitation box using the feedback we picked up at Tseinan.
Our SODIS bacterial test results
Nancy and I at 5 AM prepping our SODIS water bottles
It was super rewarding to conduct and get results from our water treatment systems and to think critically about their success and sustainability. Even when our results weren’t necessarily successful (cough cough nopales cough cough), it was still informative in seeing what systems or technologies would actually be feasible for us or another community in San Cris. On the other hand, even when systems like SODIS did work, the scale of disinfection was too small to be effective for us. It reinforced the idea we talked about in class for me of complex problems vs simple or complicated problems. Getting safe drinking water isn’t just a matter of finding a really good filtering or disinfection method and distributing it. There’s so many factors to consider, and it’s more difficult than I expected to understand how these factors interact. A lot of what we heard both at Cantaro Azul and Tseinan was the importance of education and working WITH communities as opposed to FOR them. People need to be invested in the technologies or systems they incorporate into their daily life and need to understand the value of those systems. Just like what we talked about at the beginning of the course, we as foreigners have to come into another culture with the mindset of assimilation and empathy so that the work we do can actually have an impact.
Taking pictures of existing UVC sanitation devices to create manuals!
Visiting Tseinan again was also awesome and helped us iron out more parts of our UVC sanitation box design. It also reflected, for me, how complex the design process is — even for what we thought of as a relatively straightforward design. Different people had different opinions on what would work best for the box, and we had to really hone in on what the need was, what was feasible to create, and what we thought would be best based on our own research. I am, and have been, so impressed with the work NGOs and non-profits do in Mexico. The people are incredibly motivated and passionate about what they do and the people they serve — their hearts are truly in their work. And, they have such creativity and innovation in approaching the issues they care about. I’m just echoing myself from earlier, but it’s inspiring. I sometimes worry about whether my future career will be “making a difference,” or not, and while that’s not something I can predict or determine right now, I know that the work we’ve seen over these past 4 weeks has definitely been making a difference, and I would be both honored and excited to be working on projects (or with people) like we’ve encountered.
One of our last walks through the main pedestrian street in San Cris
Overall, I am so grateful to have taken part in this experience. I wasn’t sure if I would be qualified enough for these courses, if I would get along with the group, or if I would enjoy the places we went to/activities we did, but I found that my fears were unfounded. I learned SO much both in lecture and seeing concepts lived out in the streets of Mexico City and San Cristobal, and have had so much fun getting to know my classmates, my professors, and my best friend Frankie. I think being able to see and experience the things we talked about in class — from water filters, to NGO clients, to infrastructure — made information from lectures more memorable (since I had my own experiences to attach to different ideas). It also just meant a lot more; knowing we didn’t have a limitless or even constant supply of safe drinking water helped me appreciate the experiments we were running to test for safety and potability. Speaking to a caretaker of a baby with a cleft lip helped me understand the importance of the project we hoped to design and what could help or hurt our product when in use. I cannot speak highly enough about how valuable this trip has been for me.
Last lock in session at the villa
Closing dinner at Las Pichanchas <3
Big big big thanks to Dr. Hunter and Dr. Loyo for being the absolute GOATs in teaching us and getting us all these opportunities to meet people and NGOs and for being so supportive and instructive. Also, equally big thanks to everyone else on this trip — from discussions around the kitchen table, to endless games of gin, you have made this trip Baller with a capital B.
Signing off,
Jordi De Jong