It's crazy to think it but the project is almost coming to its end and is now wrapping up. We have done the last bits of work on the site, last big expansions and are now just checking the sites and making sure everything is working, we've also been to a conference over the weekend and are working with the sites to give maintenance workshops before we leave. As usual here are lots of pictures, I hope they're enjoyed!
This is the dam water that's sent to Celaya (the water is sent to the city centre and the surroundings are left with contaminated well water).
Here is the site Cruz del Palmar where the system has been built almost completely from scratch, this was the most interesting one to work on for me as I was able to help construct the system almost from scratch and see all of the stages.
This is site San Miguel Viejo, we organised to replace the current collapsed cistern cover with a concrete structure and on the saturday lots of people from the area came to help us (really we couldn't have done it without them) - it was so appreciated (on a Saturday too) and we had a big lunch with them afterwards and stayed until the early evening
Back in Cruz del Palmar we repaired an old cistern cover and I had to do essentially what was the largest puncture repair of my life to fix it.
In this cistern in Montecillo de Nieto we put a support structure in the middle to keep it up and stop it from collapsing on itself.
Playing football with the kids in La Aurora during a quiet moment
After finishing the systems we have been getting the site users/school children to decorate the fountains, in one site they put tiles on too.
The delivery of the cistern in Cruz del Palmar
Random map of Mexico from one of the schools
Here we had the IRRI Summer school to visit one of our sites (Don Juan), we explained the system to them and also Dylan and Will from CATIS explained their home filters to the local residesnts.
On Saturday we went with the summer school to Cedesa, a local organisation focused on social development and welfare improvement for campesinos/rural residents of Mexico. There were a few talks about the organisation and also we took part in their monthly conference of discussing local projects, where we asked if the organisation director would like to be in the documentary we'd be filming over a few days this week.
The Cuenca de la independencia/valley of independence where San Miguel de Allende is based and where the waterfall is/contamination issues are.
Gaby speaking at the meeting about our project
One of the CATIS home filters at Cedesa
After we finished the conference/meeting at Cedesa we had the afternoon free to visit the town of Dolores Hidalgo where they are based and saw some nice sites including the church (where a wedding was taking place), the mariachi band of the wedding, saw a street of ceramic stores, tried tequila flavor ice cream (surprisingly nice, it was in a sorbet form) and just enjoyed walking around a new place.
On the way back we visited the grave of Jose Alfredo Jimenez, one of Mexico's most famous and cherished Mariachi artists.
After Cedesa we have been doing site visits to check that everything is working and are having the maintenance workshops with the site residents.
The schools are starting to have their graduation ceremonies now which is a big event for them
Checking the voltage of the silver ions, they have worked really well so far, great news considering we constructed them ourselves with the UCL lab technicians.
One of the first sites fixed with water flowing!
On Monday afternoon the film crew from Mexico City arrived to start work on the documentary on the water issues in the area, we have arranged interviews with local residents and have been visiting them to get material.
One family invited us in their home for dinner which was lovely as always, the people are really friendly in the communities.
We have created and printed some maintenance instructions to leave in the sites, we are explaining them in the workshops before we leave too.
We went to the Dam to film with Laura about the project
and also to the top of the mirador/viewpoint to get an overview of the city
That's about it for updates, we've been busy as always and things are changing now that the main construction work is done and the film crew is trying to get material. We should be wrapping up the project very soon! Thanks for reading if you got this far :)
