Ciudadela San Martín, Managua, Nicaragua
Friday, May 27, 2011
We got up bright and early to travel to the two study communities. Doña Carmen, Don Jorge and Doña Argentina came along for the ride. Our first stop was in La Reforma, which is where the CAPS committee is headquartered. Although it is part of the CAPS network, it goes by a different name: Asociación de Usuarios del Acueducto de la Reforma/Association for the Water Service Consumers of La Reforma (AUSAR). AUSAR is charged with administering the water service in a network of 15 communities in the area. We sat down with Byron, the AUSAR administrator and Francisco López, its president. We introduced ourselves and the project and laid out my schedule.After a group shot, we headed to Ciudadela, my new home!Essentially, I’ll be spending about 4 days in Ciudadela San Martín to get to know the community. Doña Argentina and Don Jorge will then join me in Ciudadela to do some water testing and gather hydrogeology data. I’ll then spend another 4-5 days in La Reforma, getting to know our 4 target communities in the area and repeat the water testing/hydrogeology data collection with the team, though over 2-3 days, because there is more ground to cover here. After that, I'll be in
Managua for about a week and a half to finalize my IRB application, as I'll be developing a survey to gather background information and create some maps using the data we'll have collected. The rest of the time will be spent piloting the survey in the study communities, save the last week, which I'll use to process and analyze the survey data! At least, that is the current plan. If I know anything about fieldwork, this nicely laid-out plan will be thrown completely out the window and altered at least 3 times. Anyone want to keep count?
With all that settled, we took a group shot and headed towards Ciudadela San Martín
I met my host dad, who wears many hats in the community; he’s the treasurer for the local CAPS, a 4th grade teacher at the local school and a pastor! He has a loud booming voice and an extremely amiable temperament, which made me feel at home right away. When I arrived they were actually still putting up the plywood that would partition my room (!) so I took a break for lunch with the team. It was raining cats and dogs but we soon found a warm, hearty meal in the actual city of Tipitapa. Although I couldn’t see much for the heavy sheets of rain, it seemed like a smaller version of other urban centers in
Nicaragua, which has a central marketplace which often doubles as a bus stop, stores and boutiques stuffed into each block…When it came time for the CIRA staff to leave, Doña Carmen said, “I feel so sad that we have to leave her here!” haha both Doña Carmen and Doña Argentina are very caring, motherly figures and I too was sad to leave them, but we parted with promises to stay in contact.
