Work Update

It’s been awhile since I've posted an update on my work, so here it is, divided by work type.

Water Project

About a month ago we finished measuring the current water system and the parts that will be added in the future. Measurements that were taken were of relative values of elevation and distance throughout the entire system. Combined with tube diameter, number of faucets in each house, and water flow in the system, I’ll be able to analyze the system and identify weaknesses. I’m currently in the process of doing that part.

Another issue we've been facing is that the land owner of our water source wanted to charge us monthly to use his water. Finding an answer to whether or not he could do this was a bit of a challenge since everyone had a different answer about how to resolve the problem. Eventually, we got the right answer and are now able to continue on with fundraising, since a land agreement was a requirement for requesting funds from a specific NGO.

Here I am presenting my water committee president
with a certificate for completing the water seminar.

During the days of September 5^th and 6^th I organized a water seminar in my community. This is probably the greatest tool Peace Corps has to offer. Over two days and about 4 hours each day, four volunteers and myself discussed topics including health in the house, system maintenance, how a water system works, and how to run a successful meeting. I ended up getting somewhere between twenty and thirty community members to give up their time to attend. All in all, it was a great success.

VAC (Volunteer Advisory Council)

I took on a year-long position of being the representative between the office staff and volunteers as the treasurer of VAC. Recently, I finished updating the Welcome Book which is what all new volunteers in country receive prior to arrival. Volunteers had expressed concern over several issues in the book and I set about resolving them. The process involved getting input from about 60 volunteers, and several office staff. With all the information, I set about condensing it down into a more conscience and helpful form. It’s being finalized now and new volunteers will receive the book starting in February.

Entire EWB Group

Engineers Without Borders Tour/Conference

Engineers Without Borders hosted their international conference this year in Panama. My bosses selected me to represent Peace Corps at the conference and also to lead a day long tour to a neighboring community that has had volunteers in the past to show what Peace Corps does. Everything was a great success and I got to meet many awesome people and share a bit of Peace Corps with them.

Victoria leading an introduction to
 agriculture with Peace Corps

 Agriculture

My community is very interested in improving agriculture practices. Since the water project is generally pretty slow, I took this opportunity to disperse some agriculture presentations between workdays in my community. We’ll be having our first presentation the 14^th and 15^th of October covering coffee. The following month we’ll discuss traditional crops. From there, we might have business and fish and rice tank presentations.