Empaquetadora de Sal

Hopefully you all watched our video that we posted a couple weeks ago, if not, watch it now!

http://www.indiegogo.com/water-for-el-tamarindo

We successfully raised $1800. That's $200 more than our goal. Go team! Then we got even more good news, a member of one of the volunteer's family wanted to MATCH our goal. Match. So we have $3400 to get as many needy people clean water as possible! That's approximately 100-120 filters.

Our fantastic project leads, Julia Darley and Marcie Prince, got to work. They organized a general community meeting where they solicited help in inviting all 400 families in the community to one of two workshops. One on Wednesday afternoon. And one Friday morning.

We got support from the local nurse, and she agreed to teach the workshop about water-born illnesses and proper water purification. Then at these workshops, the people would fill out a survey and then receive their voucher for a water filter. We're ordering the filters Monday and handing them out Wednesday!

Together with the community members from the general meeting we passed out fliers to as many people as we could and we put posters up on nearly every corner.

Then on Wednesday we had a grand total of 22 people at our meeting.

Salome, the leader of Mpowering People, our partner, is in the blue polo towards the left. The nurse is in the white shirt and black skirt, standing in front of everyone.

This kid played with us before the meeting. We played various varieties of catch with a plastic bag filled with sand and rocks. Life doesn't need to be complicated.

The poster says "Agua Segura" or Safe Water.

This is one of the volunteers from the General meeting helping this woman fill out her survey.

 We had fun trying to get a good picture of this boy smiling!

Enter Parental Authority, Stage Left.

 Overall, the meeting went well. But we were a little disappointed with the turn-out. But we still had Friday!

The grand total of people at our Friday meeting: 2.

But, we decided to commandeer a meeting of preschool parents, which boosted our numbers up to 16!

Workshop, Take 2!

This is a little boy, whose family will be receiving a filter next Wednesday!

But still. We have enough money for 100-120 filters. And we have not even 40 families who even want them? It didn't seem right. There is definitely a need, and we have a solution! We were confused, disappointed, and frustrated.

And then a teacher approached us. She said that some community members had asked her if someone else could fill out the survey for them, because they couldn't attend either meeting. It's really important for us that they come to one of these meetings, that way, not only do they get a filter, but extra education on water purification. So we asked why they couldn't go. Her answer was, it's salt packaging season.

The majority of the people in Tamarindo work packaging salt. But only when it's in season. When there's no salt, there's no work. So, when there is salt, it's crucial that they go to work every day they can. Not only so they can hopefully save some money, but also because if they miss one day of work, they lose their job. They often work from 9 in the morning until late in the evening, Monday through Saturday. And so none of the salt packaging workers had been able to attend either meeting.

But would they have, if they had the opportunity? We had no idea. And so, we visited one packaging place with Salome. Luckily, their boss wasn't around so we were able to at least talk to them while they continued packaging salt.

And they were all interested... So we continued with our presentation: Take 3!

I had an awesome video, but it's not letting me upload it- so yay for screen shots!

And then they all  wanted to fill out the surveys. But they couldn't stop working or else they would get behind. So Salome went around and individually helped them fill our their surveys. And Julia and I watched them package more and more salt... and we got more and more worried that we might be making them fall behind. So we decided to help.

We're pretty sure that our help just put them more behind. They know what they're doing. But we were able to chat, joke, and laugh with them. If the only reason I came to Nicaragua was to put a smile on faces of the workers in a tinsy salt packaging plant for one day- then this trip was worth it.

Plus, now I can package salt like a boss....


And we've planned another workshop/survey session for this coming Sunday. That way, all of the salt workers can come, and we won't get put behind schedule and we can still get the whole community their filters by Wednesday. And the workers' boss stopped by... and she wants a filter to keep in the packaging plant for the workers to use.

:)