Water Works

It seems I always end up saying "sorry it's been a while guys, here's another blog"...so, in an effort to get a little more writing up on the blog, this is going to be a short bit about some things I've done lately...

I've fixed a bunch of plumbing for the village in the past couple of weeks, something that I find more and more to be quite enjoyable. And I've come to find that there are lot's of villagers who have need of some kind of repair or another.
It started a couple weeks back with Celestina coming up to our apartments and asking for a 90* elbow for her faucet...at that point I didn't have time to give her what she needed, so I told her, "I'll come by this afternoon and take care of it..."

I brought along some extra supplies (just in case, you never know...) and sure enough, I needed them. It turned out that here water setup had never been completed, and she had been using it at sub optimal conditions. It turned out to be an easy fix, except that she also told me that she hadn't had water on a regular basis for a couple of weeks. Ok, try and fix that too... the point at which her water supply connects to the main feed was installed incorrectly, so that too got fixed...with the help of a couple of the Ortiz kids and some of the local kids...of course, eventually they got bored and stared playing with a grasshopper, which was fine by me..even when they put the grasshopper in my hair.
So Celestina's water got fixed, awesome! She had water, I got dirty (on multiple occasions) and all was good.

The hard rains, as you have heard, can take out the roads, but also the water...the collection dam (the 'presa') 3 miles up the mountain gets filled with sand after a while, more so when there is a lot of rain...and so we round up a couple of guys from the village to hike up and shovel it out.
It's a job I don't mind doing, it's a great hike and it's beautiful up there, as you hike up past the pine forests and farmlands, and into the high rain forest. After an hour of shoveling (or more when you have fewer guys) and being good and cold after standing in the mountain spring water for a while, we connect the tubes back up again and hike back down, following the water that's rushing down to Pinalito.

So last week we ended up doing that twice, there was a good deal of rain. No problem... just another part of life up here, but the 3rd time the water went out that week..."not again!" But, thankfully, it was something else...a broken tube 1/2 way up the mountain.
I went up with Julio, our ever faithful helper on the mission, and Arnoldo, a great young guy who's got the right dose of enthusiasm and eagerness, and we gathered our supplies together to fix the break...only....hmmmmm....the replacement section of tube we had was 2.5 inches in diameter, and the tube we were fixing was only 2 inches diameter...a brainteaser. After a bit of puzzling I figured if out, wrap the smaller tube with an extra layer of tube and then put the big one on. We tried it, and success! And once again, Pinalito did not go thirsty.

Today, I was asked to go fix a faucet that suffered from a broken pvc joint...I went and fixed it, nothing difficult, another happy customer (Virginia, the lady I fixed the faucet for, could do her laundry, and was happy about that).

What I love about going to fix things for the locals is it gives me a chance to interact with them, and in many different ways. Children always love to watch in amazement as I use my tools and fix whatever broke, and I can always get a laugh by making a trumpet out of some pvc pipe. The adults, are mostly just happy that their stuff gets fixed, and they sit and chat, either with me or with their neighbor, and it's fun to be part of that. Usually I'll get some food out of it too (definitely a good form of payment), a bowl of rice and beans, or some fire roasted corn. Going up to the presa with 'the guys' is always fun, and listening (or trying to) to their rambling conversations is entertaining. And, usually after my fix-it mission, I'm covered in dirt, which means I've had a good day.

We do our best to keep the water flowing to all...and also to keep the Holy Spirit flowing in the same manner, to all...pray that we can, and also, that you can.