Improving Atajados (Water Ponds) in Pojo, Bolivia
Improving Atajados (Water Ponds) in Pojo, Bolivia
Mano a Mano’s heavy equipment starting the trip from Cochabamba to Pojo to dredge water ponds, late October 2018.
We are currently dredging 83 water ponds built by others, which have since filled with silt. Mano a Mano’s heavy equipment left Cochabamba for Pojo a few weeks ago, and Ivo Velasquez from our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Nuevo Mundo sent us an update on the work:
“Mano a Mano’s heavy equipment started work in Pojo on October 25th. It was not easy getting the equipment to the atajados, and they are spread out throughout the area; getting from one atajado to the next takes 1-3 hours.
Through early November, we have been working in the community of Charcas and have dredged 5 atajados, which has totaled 40 hours of machine time to excavate the silt. We then went to the community of Thago and have worked on 7 atajados, totaling 50 hours of machine time with the bulldozer.
These cleanup projects are not easy. With the first rains coming, communities have been able to use these atajados to collect water, and they appreciate the work.”
Mano a Mano Water Projects
Mano a Mano seeks the most feasible means for accessing water when communities ask us to partner with them. We have constructed or improved 320 farm ponds in areas where tillable land plots are not side by side; 47 surface wells in communities that lie near banks of large rivers; and 9 large water reservoirs.
Ucuchi Water Reservoir, September 2018. This was Mano a Mano’s first reservoir, built in 2006, and continues to provide consistent access to water for families in the community.
Drilling a Pilot Deep Water Well in Laguna Carmen, Bolivia
Drilling a Pilot Deep Water Well in Laguna Carmen, Bolivia
After searching for two years, Mano a Mano located and purchased equipment that can successfully drill for water through hard rock to a depth of 340 meters. Working through the challenges of removing this machinery from the mine where it had been used in the Bolivian Andes and then encountering repeated road blockades during protests, we arrived in Cochabamba, drill in tow. We made needed repairs and then took advantage of a generous, unanticipated offer. An engineer who had worked with this drill volunteered to provide specialized training for our engineer and mechanics.
Mano a Mano’s deep well drilling equipment.
Moving this deep well drilling equipment is a long and challenging process.
The Laguna Carmen Deep Well
Taking advantage of this offer, we decided to pilot test the well drilling machine by drilling a well in the community of Laguna Carmen, which is nearby Cochabamba.
Mano a Mano staff working on the well in Laguna Carmen.
In this picture, the drill has reached a depth of 60 meters in Laguna Carmen. Our engineer estimates that there is 24 meters depth of water in the well. Once the geology of the well is documented, piping will be installed and soon after that, we will pump water.
The pilot well now yields clean drinking water for about 1,800 people whose well was collapsing. They are elated, commenting that the water is “sweet and crystal clear”. We will be sending water samples from this well to the University of San Simon in Cochabamba to test for bacteria.
This pilot well project has further developed Mano a Mano’s capacity to respond to water scarcity and the resulting lack of sufficient food in this region. Soon we will proceed to the next community that we have partnered with, to drill the deep well for which we have received funding. We expect the next well to be completed in the coming months. Once completed, the new well will be tested by the same laboratory at the University of San Simon.
Mano a Mano Water Projects
This deep well is an exciting addition to Mano a Mano’s water projects. Mano a Mano seeks the most feasible means for accessing water when communities ask us to partner with them. We have constructed or improved 320 farm ponds in areas where tillable land plots are not side by side; 47 surface wells in communities that lie near banks of large rivers; and 9 large water reservoirs. We are currently dredging 83 ponds built by others, which have since filled with silt.
Ucuchi Water Reservoir, September 2018. This was Mano a Mano’s first reservoir, built in 2006, and continues to provide consistent access to water for families in the community.
Mano a Mano Speaker Series: Professor Carol Klee on November 13th at 6:30pm
Mano a Mano Speaker Series: Professor Carol Klee on November 13th at 6:30pm
Join us at Mano a Mano on Tuesday, November 13th for Carol Klee’s talk on “Languages in Bolivia: Quechua Language Maintenance, Structure & Use.” Carol Klee is a professor of Spanish linguistics at the University of Minnesota, where she has taught since 1985 and has served in various administrative roles, including department chair and assistant vice president for international scholarship. Her research has focused primarily on how the Spanish of the Andean region of Peru has changed due to contact with Quechua, and how the Spanish of Lima is changing as a result of migration from the Quechua-speaking provinces of Peru.
Professor Carol Klee
Speaker Series Details
- WHAT: Mano a Mano Speaker Series with Professor Carol Klee: “Languages in Bolivia: Quechua Language Maintenance, Structure & Use”
- WHERE: Mano a Mano, 925 Pierce Butler Route, St. Paul, MN 55104
- WHEN: Tuesday, November 13th, 6:30-7:45pm
Please RSVP
If you plan on attending, please RSVP with Carmen (carmen@manoamano.org or 651-457-3141).
We hope to see you there!
Visiting the Ucuchi Water Reservoir with Rotary – September 2018
Visiting the Ucuchi Water Reservoir with Rotary – September 2018
Ucuchi Water Reservoir, September 2018
This is Mano a Mano’s water reservoir in Ucuchi, Bolivia during a site visit with Rotary International members from St. Paul, Duluth, and Fargo a few weeks ago in September 2018.
The reservoir was Mano a Mano’s first reservoir we built, more than a decade ago in 2005. It provides year-round access to water for local farmers (as you can see, the reservoir is full, and the rainy season doesn’t begin for months), but it has also become the anchor of the San Isidro Ecotourism Park which has sprung up around it. The park includes fishing, camping, boating (check out the swan boats in the picture!), and rappelling, and is “the second most-visited tourist attraction in the municipality of Sacaba,” with 14,000 visitors each year.
The Cochabamba newspaper Los Tiempos wrote an article about the park last year (full link to the article, translated into English, on the Mano a Mano website) and we are happy to see the impact that this project continues to have.
Improving Atajados (Water Ponds) in Pojo
Improving Atajados (Water Ponds) in Pojo
Mano a Mano staff are preparing our heavy equipment to go to Pojo (Carrasco Province in the Department of Cochabamba), Bolivia to dredge 75 water ponds before the rainy season begins.
Mano a Mano Water Projects
Our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Nuevo Mundo partners with Bolivian communities to build or improve water projects (reservoirs, water ponds, and wells). To date, we have constructed 8 large agricultural water reservoirs, 45 surface wells, and 276 water ponds (atajados). Access to water improves crop yields and quality for Bolivian farmers, which improves nutrition and can double or triple a family’s income.
Click here to see more posts about Mano a Mano’s water projects.
Families Benefiting from the Wirkini Water Reservoir (Mano a Mano’s Most Recently Completed Reservoir)
Paulino Rocha Gonzales, 44 years old, married with 4 children living in Iluri Grande, Tiraque Province, is a direct beneficiary of the waters made possible by the Wirkini reservoir.
He mentions that the water in the reservoir is currently full, with the excess water flowing through the overflow channel. People irrigate their plots only using the overflow water – so far the outflow valve for the outlet pipe of the reservoir has not been opened.
Paulino says:
“the lands were previously not in production due to lack of water; now, all of those lands are cultivated with potatoes, corn, peas, beans, barley, oats, and wheat. In the past nobody wanted to buy these lands; even those with some available irrigation sold for minimal prices. Now, nobody wants to sell land, and everyone wants to buy because they are assured of irrigation water from the reservoir.”
The beneficiaries of the Wirkini reservoir, more than 340 families, are happy with the reservoir water and happy that the reservoir overflows every year. They thank Mano a Mano for our collaboration.
The Wirkini Water Reservoir was completed in October 2016 and quickly filled with about 20 feet of water (top picture). By March 2017 the water was 50 feet deep (bottom picture).
Wirkini Residents Talk About the Reservoir and the Impact it Will Have for Them
More Information about the Wirkini Water Reservoir
- Note from Mano a Mano co-founder Segundo Velasquez from the dedication
- Pictures & information from August when construction was being finalized
- Post from volunteer Sam Klein about a site visit to Wirkini in September
Mano a Mano Water Projects
The Wirkini project joins Mano a Mano’s 8 other large-scale water retention projects that benefit 131,062 people throughout Bolivia (51,062 directly). Our first water reservoir was built in Ucuchi, Bolivia in 2005 (this reservoir in Ucuchi is the other project featured in the video above) and has been consistently providing water to the community for more than a decade, even in times of drought like Bolivia is currently experiencing. We are expecting the Wirkini reservoir to work as well as the Ucuchi reservoir, for many years to come.
