Month: June 2009

Assessment Days
Morning arrived along with Catalina’s breakfast. The plan was to hike up the hill to visit the water sources. The community has an existing drinking water system that was installed many years ago, but there is not enough pressure to deliver water to all the houses. Senor Gregorio explains to us, as we walk back up the mountain, that there are two existing water sources that are piped down to the community. He wants to add two more, and that is where we were going to see the water sources and look at the pipeline route they have identified. (Six or so locals went with us)

We passed by fields growing barley and some small ponds that have potatoes soaking. Sr. G. explained how the different potatoes are grown and processed so they have unique flavors. He tells us there are over 100 varieties of potatoes grown here. Some of them we see are soaking in pits, others are drying in the sun. Aside from some grains and a few beans they grow primarily potatoes and that is their main source of food.

Sr. G. pointed out an irrigation pipeline in the other side of the valley. It provides water to another community down the valley further.

After a steady uphill hike of a mile or so, we got to the furthest water source. It is a typical mountain spring about 1,000 ft higher than the community. We took a break and Sr. G. offers a prayer of thanks for the project to succeed. I fired up the GPS and marked the spot. They have already roughed out a proposed pipe route and we started following that back towards the community, marking points with the GPS. Continue reading

Well, it finally happened. All the effort I have put into getting a professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders started here in the Springs has come to fruition. We adopted a drinking water and sanitation project for a remote Aymara Indian community in the Andes Mountains last fall and have been raising funds and making preparations for a site assessment trip in the Spring of 2009. In mid-May I led a team consisting of three members of the professional chapter and three members of the Air Force Academy student chapter to Suncallo, Bolivia. What follows are the notes I wrote up on the plane coming back. It consists of many observations and side notes on the trip. There was a great deal of adventure getting there and back but overall we accomplished our mission and brought back lots of data and pictures which will help us in our engineering design work. Note: if you click on the pictures you can see a larger version.

Our trip was delayed by a day due to an American Airlines requirement that all travelers must provide proof of yellow fever vaccination. The American Airlines policy contradicts the guidance given on the US Governments Center for Disease Control (CDC) website which indicates that travelers proceeding to No-Risk areas in Bolivia may sign a waiver at the point of entry.

Our pre-trip research into the vaccination requirements on the CDC website clearly identified the project site to be in a No-Risk area and to keep the costs down and eliminate the risk of introducing a live vaccine into our bodies four of the team decided not to get the yellow fever vaccinations. It is worth noting that the US Air Force declined to provide the yellow fever vaccination to the members of EWB-AFA for the same reasons.

The last thing we expected was for the airline to deny us boarding our aircraft. Regardless of our justifications and documentation supporting our position American Airlines refused to allow us to board the aircraft. Other EWB chapters should be made aware that the airlines have this authority and that the airlines policy may differ from the US Governments. It should be incumbent upon the travel agency to make the travelers aware of any requirements levied by the airlines. Apparently, the $360 in “fees” we paid the travel agency didn’t include this small courtesy.

Fortunately, we were able to locate the required vaccine and proceed the following morning on a direct flight from Denver to Miami and thence on a direct flight (overnight) to La Paz from the Miami airport. Visa fees were paid, Immigration was cleared (no they didn’t ask to see our yellow fever vaccination certifications) and Customs was cleared effortlessly. Continue reading