Water Project

Sorry for missing a blog post last week. Everything was pretty busy, and it is easy to forget when I haven’t checked the internet in a few days. But last week I learned the first few steps in building the water filters. The filters look like really big flowerpots. We buy the barrow (not the same barrow that I work with for stoves…I stay a lot cleaner on filter daysJ) from Cusco, and first have to break up all the clumps and make thick smooth balls. It is actually a lot harder than it sounds…I guess it is like kneading bread dough, but it takes a while to make the balls smooth and ready to press. This step is really important because if there is even one small rock in the barrow, it might cause the whole filter to break. The father of a ProPeru staffer actually made the huge press that we use. My boss Mercedes is usually pretty good at slyly sneaking away to sift the sawdust when it’s time to press, and I jokingly say that I am off to the gym! It takes about 8 minutes to “pump” out a filter J and then we carefully smooth out EVERY crack inside and out with a two nail files. Mom, finally a project where my desire for perfection is actually a good thing!

Then we cover them up as best we can with big tarps, and they dry for at least a week before they are fired. Ideally we would have an enclosed space to let them to dry, but for the most part they are at the mercy of the elements, so it’s not uncommon to come back the next day and find that the two filters we spent all day making are now cracked and we have to start from scratch again.

This project is still sort of in the development stage. Pro Peru hasn’t delivered any to communities yet. Apparently there were several other filter models before this one that ended up crumbling when they were fired. This model is still very fragile. We have to take a lot of care when moving them the first few days. Next I know we add a fine mixture of saw dust and some special kind of silver paint which is what actually filters the water. It is a little frustrating having to spend so much time just to make one filter, and having to re-press, and re-press ones that break when I know that the need in the communities is immediate. Pro Peru has had so many requests for them, and there is just no way that the production is ever going to meet the demand.

How can the U.S. mass produce Brita’s in but somehow the technology down here is still in the flowerpot stage???