San Francisco de Ojuera

March was a busy month in the municipality of San Francisco de Ojuera. We held socializations, capacitations in six communities and trained 17 Community Agents.

Rolf leading a Community Agents training for the communities of
La Palca
San Ramon
La Estancia
El Galivan
Santa Fe

El Chaparron

In El Chaparron the delivery truck couldn’t make it all the way into the community because of the roads so we unloaded the filters and loaded up the Agua Pura truck as well one of the trucks from the community to transport the filters the rest of the way. Fortunately, there were lots of community members around to help. Delivering filters in El Chaparron

The Community members of Santa Fe have come up with a few creative ways to transport filters given that the filter carrying devise that Jim brought down in February was being used in another community.
We also held a Community Agents training in San Jeronimo El Pinal and delivered and installed 98 filters there! This is our largest community yet.

Top: Community Agents, Bottom from left: Sergio, Mauricio, Rolf

From left: Blanca Rosa (community member), her grandson, Allison (Peace Corps Volunteer)

Solicitude for Filters

In March we also finished installing filters in El Capulin, Nuevo Celilac. In February when the group from the Maine Rotary Club was here we received a solicitation from El Capulin while installing in El Conal, a nearby community.

Solicitation

El Capulin, Nuevo Celilac, Santa Bárbara Febuary 2nd, 2008

To the International Rotary Club,

We send you an attentive and cordial greeting to all the members of your institution, wishing you much success in your delicate functions on behalf of those interested.

The motive of sending you this solicitation is to see if by your dignified means you can support with the water purifying filters project in order to improve the health of all, especially the children. The signatories below are ready to help with manual labor as well as economically once the project is in place.

We hope for a positive answer from you as a cooperating organization to poor communities.

Signed by 23 members of the group with ID number

Note: We installed 50 filters in this community in March and February 2008.

Ramon

Ramon was our driver during the Maine trip and liked Agua Pura so much that he just never went away…he is now helping us install filters on a day to day basis to get things moving along quicker.
Sergio on left, Ramon on right

New Delivery Truck

In the past we have always had Marvin Chavez, the owner of the filter workshop deliver the filters to the communities. However, his prices have gone up steadily and he was no longer able to meet our need for deliveries due to limited space and time. Fortunately we were able to find another company to deliver filters for us at a lower price and they can deliver 25 filters at a time as opposed to 15 with Marvin. The truck they use has walls so we can stand the filters up during transport and thus save time, money and gas. We will continue to look for the best available companies for filter transportation based on price, availability and reliability.

Sergio loading filters onto the new truck.

$29 is the new magic number

From the start of the filter project we have paid $25 per filter. However, due to past increases in materials such as cement, PVC and sheet metal the production cost of the filters has increased. Therefore we negotiated a new price of $29 per filter with Marvin.

Hoy NO Circula por Honduras

Starting on April 7th, 2008 each vehicle must choose one day a week between Monday to Saturday when it will not drive in order to save on gas prices and reduce congestion. The Agua Pura truck will not be allowed to be driven on Mondays. We will use this day to focus on planning the week and the health promoters can always use the motorcycle to visit communities.

Moto Accident

On Friday April 18th Nineth & Sergio had an accident on the motorcycle. Sergio is sore and a little scrapped up, but nevertheless was back to work on Sunday. Nineth on the other hand bruised her right knee badly and has a hairline fracture on her right foot. Currently she has a boot on her foot and a brace on her knee. They would like to put a cast on the foot but are going to wait until the scrapes heal so her foot doesn’t get infected inside the cast. We hope they both heal quickly.
Even with a broken foot Nineth still has a positive attitude (or maybe it is just the pain killers taking their course)

Annual Report & Audit

Nineht & Allison in Santa Barbara and Jim in Maine have been busy working on the annual report and audit for The Rotary Foundation. For all Matching Grants above $25,001 an audit is required with the annual and final reports. It is the first time the Santa Barbara Rotary Club has had such a large sum, long term Matching Grant project and thus had necessity to do an audit, so it is a learning experience for all of us.

All Suited Up

Sergio is ready for the rainy season (although we have had a welcome cold front the past week the rainy season is still a ways away).

Good-bye Douglas

Douglas Diaz our trusty treasurer will be leaving Santa Barbara in the next few months. He will turn his responsibilities as treasurer for the project over to Melvin Sagastume, the current club treasurer. We will miss Douglas.

Carroll Creek

Sergio has been visiting the Carroll Creek communities of Santa Ana, El Carmen and Buena Vista to check out filter use and will be continuing to re-visit Carroll Creek communities over the next few months to tie up all loose ends.

El Balsamo, Ilama

Allison, our Peace Corps volunteer, Andrea, a visiting volunteer and Rotarian Dr. Alvaro Perez went to El Balsamo, Ilama to do hand out deparasiting medication. The new Community Agents were an incredible help in organizing everyone and making sure that families that couldn’t come still got medication. The whole community was waiting for us when we got there and the whole process took just a few hours.