Many of the supplies for the pipeline were recently delivered. The community received 120 incorrect stainless steel unions from the supplier, but the supplier has agreed that it was a mistake and will be delivering the correct unions soon.

We are still waiting for the electrical utility company to run electricity to the pump house, but George has made contact with the company, and this work will be started soon.

English

Spanish

Kichwa*

*These spellings are probably not correct. I simply wrote down what I heard Alberto say using only my own understanding of American English phonetics.

After discussing the rebar situation with the village men that were in charge of the construction, including Maestro Juan Augosto Tigasi Lutuala, a well respected community member with higher level construction experience, we encountered some difficulty. The original design had called for using number 6 rebar at 40 cm spacing in the walls to provide the design with enough strength. Due to materials problems with the rebar, our EWB engineers, Steven Trate and Bob Stachel, favored changing this design to number 10 rebar at 40 cm spacing, which would increase the strength of the design (although this was not necessary) and make the best use of the materials that we still had without increasing the price of the design. With the help of PCV George Beane, we discussed this design change with the Maestro and other respected men, including Cesar Lutuala Lutuala, Jorge Lutuala Sacatoro, Alberto Manzano Manzano, Fransisco Lutuala, and Augustin Patricio Ugsha Ugsha, who raised a number of concerns. The group did not feel comfortable with 40 cm spacing, feeling that it was too far apart to provide the necessary strength for the walls, although Steven and Bob provided them with calculations justifying the strength and stressed the fact that our design team had checked multiple times to ensure the strength of the design. To preserve relations and reduce friction with the community, our EWB team made the decision to follow the desire of the community, even though the strength of this design would be grossly beyond the needs of the project. We determined that enough number 10 rebar was on the site where the design change could feasibly be implemented and because the design strength would increase, not decrease, from the changes, the overall change resulted in no additional cost and maintained positive relationship with the community.

The remainder of the afternoon work went smoothly. The sand truck arrived with the delivery of the needed sand. The rebar for the footer was assembled and tied as necessary. The footer was then poured and allowed to cure overnight. The rebar for the walls was cut and tied in place and hoops of rebar were also prepared and tied into the wall. By the end of the afternoon, the tank was prepared for the floor to be poured the next day. In addition, health and social impact surveys were conducted with a number of community members.

A community household listing was procured by Cesar Lutuala Lutuala, the unofficial president of Tingo Pucará, to be used by Barb Pavliakova in the administration of health and social impact surveys. In addition, the surveys were explained to Cesar and the other community leaders, and permission was granted to ask a member from each household several questions regarding their health, finances, hygiene, and water practices. These patriarchs also offered to provide help with translation in households that did not have a Spanish-speaker from Kichwa into Spanish.

The storage tank area had been excavated by the villagers prior to our arrival, so the area was fully prepared with a hole of the basic proportions that we had asked for in our design. The footer was dug deeper than our design, so we had to increase rebar and concrete to adjust. The team spent the afternoon digging holes in the pump tank for the supply and distribution tubes.

Because it was Saturday, the majority of the village was not working on the tank, for religious observance of the sabbath. In the evening, we were invited to observe a marriage proposal ceremony of Marco, one of the youth in the village, to Laura.

Prior to leaving for the community, the team went to review materials at a PDV wholesaler that had won a bid for the project. We inspected the 40 mm stainless steel and PVC pipes. The quality of the pipes was appropriate for our design, but there were some discrepancies in the understanding of the measurements provided; where 2 inch pipes were needed, 50 mm pipes were ordered, which were considered the equivalent of 1.5 inch pipes in the Ecuadorian measurement system. In addition, the diameters provided in millimeters were inside measurements for both PVC and stainless steel pipes, but were outside diameter measurements for the galvanized iron pipes. As a result, some of the sizes are incorrect and we had to increase the sizes ordered. The supplier was flexible and helpful about how to convert the sizes to ensure that all pipes would fit with each other and would be the correct size for our water systems needs. We were also able to inspect and confirm the specs on the water pump. The supplier also took us to their plant so we could visually inspect the 40mm stainless steel pipes. All pipes were correct quality and size, though we determined we would need to order connectors for the pipes.

The travel team drove to Latacunga and stopped at the local hardware store to pick up basic supplies needed for the construction. We drove into Tingo Pucará and arrived at approximately 8pm where we were welcomed by the community.