Dia 3 - Tuesday
The project suddenly jumped from theory to practical - the water ran out this morning. Not a good place to be, in a house with 30 people all waking up. Still, people here are so relaxed one would hardly think it was a problem. Had meeting with group to plan the day. Scheduled to be in the house of internet to see if Saulo could get in touch with the person who wrote the research paper about Serrinha, and others to do more online searching for further information about the area.
I opted to go to find where the hose to the house starts, somewhere up Rio Pombo, the same source for the internet house. Went trekking up a barely existing forest path with Antonio, Jose, Lirca and the groundskeeper, who I understand is paid by a group of houses to maintain the water supply. Perhaps he does some handywork too? It’s about 1km away, but the path is a bit winding and through vegetation, slippery moss covered rocks and giant insects. You sort of follow the black hose, but there are some hoses that are legacy. The hose you follow has also been patched up in the gambiarra fashion, so maybe not the most efficient.
Made it to the rock pool where the hose starts pulling in water. A large rock hangs over the water, which was cool and refreshing to dip my arms in to wash the mud and dirt I was covered in. The working theory is that leaves blocked the mouth of the house, which created an air pocket, which meant there was not enough pressure to push the water to the water tank in the house. Went back along to a T-junction in the hose with a tap. Lirca turned on the tap, which didn’t flow so much as cough and sputter with water. Spent a few minutes with the tap on, trying to get all the air out. Is that how it works? My grasp on plumbing is weak, on physics weaker. Also couldn’t figure out how the water flowed down a hose that went uphill.
Came back to the house, but now seems doubtful the one we fixed was the one that connected to the house. Took an outdoor shower in the empty pool, so silver linings.
lunch
After food, the rest of the team went to see Filipe, and get more information about the history of Serrinha. I got a quick wifi fix, and tried to locate the area on GMaps. Not easy.
In the afternoon, went to a local house called Pui Pui, where Luise lives and maintains a bountiful garden on his neighbour’s property. Understand they have some sort of deal, as the neighbour is not a full time resident. Ana & Paolo, who want to agroflorest the area came to find out about native edible fruits and vegetables. Would be interesting to find out about changes in the land from Luise.
Found out one of the Biggest issue to overcome in creating projects around water & autonomy here is that there is such an abundance of the stuff that people don’t really think about it. The gambiarra spirit of hose on demand and solving any issues that come up then and there in their distributed hose network means it’s difficult to convince people they should/need to change their attitude. That’s always a problem that comes up when working in communities. Who am I to say they need to fix something that don’t seem broke?