Today we visited the village of Nuevo Milagro which translates to New Miracle. I am not sure what sort of miracle has blessed this place but it certainly wasn't obvious.
Never Milagro is a very small village outside of Iquitos of about 60 families. They have been getting their water from several manmade wells that are not very sanitary. Here's Cecil checking out one of those wells. Our job today was to install a chlorinator on a new well that had been dug 25 meters (sorry about the metric).
This is a boy we watched carry this water from one of those wells back to his house. We really hope his parents had the good sense to boil this before using it, but that's a long shot.
Unfortunately, we hit several snags and after spending almost the entire day there couldn't get the water to run clean. Even though it was treated, the locals won't see the value if it is still the same yellowish brown color.
This is me up on top of the water tower right after (unsuccessfully) trying to get a cell phone signal so we could call Water Missions in Charleston to help us .... And right before I dropped my cell phone from this tower in to a mud puddle. One of the villagers brought me some rice to immerse my phone in and a MIRACLE -- it works.
Here I am meeting the mayor of San Juan Bautista which is the district that encompasses both Nuevo Milagro and El Dorado. He never misses a photo op.
Here is where my investment in a Rosetta Stone really starts to pay off. ....
Es un perro.
So, the solution we came up with was to let the well pump run for a day or two to see if we can get to some clearer water. We are hopeful that someone can get back there later in the week to finish the job. Roger hates to not finish the job and he was really disappointed. Here he is telling me to Step Off after a long day.
Of course, we can't call the whole day a failure, as we were able to brighten the children's lives with a little love and attention.
This was the only blonde haired blue eyed in the village. Me thinks his Mom fell in love briefly with an American.
Shy girl. There's always one.
Location:Nuevo Milagro, Peru
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