El Salvador Travel Blog

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from El Salvador. Yesterday (Wednesday) was our most productive day yet! After a quick breakfast of platanos and delicious omeletes, we split up into groups to collect data on manholes. Matt, Cody, and I (Bailey) went to La Granja to note the locations of all the manholes and double-check our information, while Erin, Eddie, Katie, Tom, and Jen went to Nuevo Ferracarril to finish up taking data. Unfortunately, John wasn´t feeling well, and stayed back at los Ranchos to rest.

For lunch, we returned to Los Ranchos for a much-needed break, and then it was back to work in the communities. In the afternoon (probably the hottest so far!) we dug up manholes and opened them to make sure they were flowing properly. We were thrilled to discover that, for the most part, things seem to be working well! As usual, the community members were essential in the process of locating and uncovering the manholes, and with their help, we were able to finish up the job by late afternoon.

Meanwhile, Katie was beginning work on the Microbial element of our project. She and Eddie took samples of the water running through the streets and started to chemically analyze them. These samples will produce results that will show us how effective the system has been so far at cleaning up the water that runs through the streets.

After finishing work, we all took much-anticipated showers, then spent time chatting, snacking on fruit, and playing hearts (despite an unexpected storm and brief power outage). It was also Cody´s birthday, so we bought a pinata and had a blast knocking it around. All in all, it was a great day here in Nejapa, El Salvador!

Hola a todos!

Today was a very eventful day in El Salvador! We split up into smaller groups after a breakfast of pancakes; Bailey and Kody stayed at Los Ranchos to work on sinks, while Eddie and Katie went to the Clinica de Salud to meet with the local Director of Health, then the wastewater treatment plant to take water samples. Meanwhile, Jen, Erin, and Matt went into the communitites to finish tie-ing off manholes and checking water flow.

After lunch, we travelled to what we thought would be hot springs, but turned out to be a waterpark!! A little loss of translation never hurt anyone :) When we got back to Los Ranchos, we spent some time relaxing, then walked to the local pupusaria for a classic El Salvadorian dinner of pupusas.

We saved the best for last! When we get back to Los Ranchos we'll wrap up our day with a strawberry birthday cake to celebrate Kody 's 20th !

Nos Vemos!

Katie

¿Que tal todos?

Today we woke up to another round of dogs barking, roosters screeching, and car horns blaring (the typical morning at Los Ranchos) and got straight to work in Nuevo Ferrocarril after our breakfast of Zucharitas.

We spent the day sampling some locations that had standing water in the streets. Katie, Eddie, Cody, and Tom collected samples that were later tested and filtered back at Los Ranchos. Bailey, Matt, Jen, John, and Erin spent the whole morning checking tie-offs (part of our final construction documents) to each manhole in the drainage system. Today we finished checking the tie-offs for Nuevo and tomorrow we will do La Granja.

We had a suprise visit from another service group in the communities today. A Luthern church group was touring the community, and we were very excited to find that they were from Milwaukee, WI. It was nice to talk with them for a bit.

During the afternoon we held a community meeting where Jen and Bailey passed out the maintenance information packets that they had worked on completing this past semester. The information in the packets gave community members directions on how to use the grey water drainage system that was installed last winter break.

After dinner tonight most of us went to the Polideportivo to play futbol and swim in the pool. It was so refreshing after being out in the hot sun all day. Katie was incredibly dedicated and stayed back with John and Tom to filter the water samples taken earlier in the day.

All in all, it was a very productive day!

Hola amigos,

Today started with some delicious plantains for breakfast and a meeting at the mayor´s office. All of us went to his office to discuss the plans for the communities. He seemed really excited about the water conservation sink project and we got lots of other great feedback about our work.

After the meeting, we took a tour of Nuevo Ferrocarril and La Granja to show the communities to the new travelers and reconnect with Dona Mima and Don Julio. They seemed really happy to see us and gladly showed us around the communities.

The afternoon consisted of going to the hardware store and returning to Los Ranchos for a fantastic beef dinner and a few rounds of hearts!

Hi everyone!

We landed a few hours ago and arrived safely. The people who were supposed to pick us up were on time and treated us very nicely. They served us a nice hot meal when we arrived to Los Ranchos and now we are prepping for a productive and exciting week ahead. All is well here from the El Salvador group and will continue with more information as the days go by.

Thanks for listening and have a great night!

-Eddie

Hey Everybody,
So I´m going to recap the last two days of our time spent here in El Salvador. Yesturday was Wednesday Aug. 29th and it was probably one of our most productive days. We woke up at around 6am to have breakfast at about 7am which has become the usual for most of this week. We then went out to the waste water treatment plant to start taking samples of the water and filtering them so that we can run tests when we get back to the UW. We took 4 samples from the treatment plant, which ended up taking all morning because the water was so bad and full of particulates that 2 of the samples took about 1.5hrs to filter. Later, we went out to La Granja to collect a couple samples from the potable water taps they are using there. We had a chance to say hi to one of the residents who has been a lot of help in the past, Don Miguel. We then went to Nuevo Ferrocarril to collect more samples. Ian and Isaak spent the afternoon collecting and filtering the samples while Jim and I went out on the streets taking measurements in order to create a reference as to where the manholes are located. This process is called "tying off" the manholes. At about 4:30pm the afternoon rains started and forced us to end our work. The rains were very hard causing large rivers to form in all of the streets of Nuevo Ferrocarril. We were pretty lucky to get out with the bus that we were riding in, but our driver, Ingles, was a master at maneuvering the dirt roads and we got out without a scratch. We then went back to Los Ranchos for a quick dinner before heading out to the beach! We had to drive about an hour and a half to get there but it was really worth it because the water was incredably warm and the waves were perfect for jumping over or riding in. At the beach we also got a chance to sample a local El Salvadorian food called pupusas which is basically tortillas with beans and cheese inside with a side of a cabbage like vegitable on top. After all that we were all pretty tired out so once we got back to Los Ranchos we hit the hay.

Today was also pretty eventfull. We started the day just like the day before with breakfast at Los Ranchos, and then proceeded to go out to Nuevo Ferrocarril. Jim and I finished up our tie offs for all the manholes while Ian and Isaac got a bunch of the community members to open up a few manholes so that we could measure the grade, as well as assess the flow. We finished up all of our work in the community by about 1:30pm and went back to have lunch at Los Ranchos. After lunch we decided to go to the pool, which is also a natural hot spring called Termo del Rio which was only about a half hour away. The pool was really relaxing and the water was unbelievably clear. There were even little fish in the water that nibbled at your feet so we were all able to get a free pedicure while swimming. When we got back to Nejapa, we had a quick dinner and then we went out and ran through the rain to where the community members were preparing for the Bolas De Fuego festival that is happening tomorrow. We got to see them make the bolas and they let us practice throwing them too! The bolas are basically balls of cloth soaked in gassoline that they light on fire and throw around. The festival is held to remember when the San Salvador Volcano erupted in the early 1900s. And that has basically been it for today.

I´m not sure if we´ll get a chance to come back to the computers before we leave on Saturday so I´d just like to say that all and all this trip has been extremely productive, and at the same time an unbelievalbe adventure.
Thanks for reading,

-Evan

Today, we began our day by meeting with the mayor of Nejapa, Sergio Quijada. As has been the case with the entire city government thus far, we were extremely impressed with the mayor´s organization and professionalism. After finishing the meeting we left Nejapa and traveled to Nuevo Ferrocarril. Once in Nuevo Ferrocarril, we reunited with the leaders of the communities and the appointed construction foreman and took a long walk through the community. During this walk we were able to discuss the construction which took place in our absence and visually located all the manholes and clean-outs. Later this week, we will return in order to create an as-built of the completed pipeline system.

Afterwards, we had the pleasure of joining the entire local government board of representatives for a luncheon at Los Ranchos. Although project-oriented discussion was a part of the luncheon, we were able to enjoy the company of the board, and Ian even was able to reminisce with the mayor about their past experiences in a certain Spanish city. Following this lunch we were joined by the local waste-water engineer who then joined us for a tour of the construction which is taking place at the waste-water treatment plant. Finally, we sat down with the engineer to discuss future plans for the plant and for the entire areas waste-water treatment plans for the future. With that, we ended our day with a tasty supper prepared by the cooks at Los Ranchos. We look forward to working hard tomorrow on taking water samples at the treatment plant as well as throughout the communities.

Before I go, I have to post a shout out to my Dad, Duane Groshek, whose birthday it is today! I love you, Dad, and hope you had a wonderful day in beautiful Wisconsin!

Until Later,

Isaac Groshek

Apart from Tropical Storm Issac, a missing co-pilot and mecanical problems slowed us down even further. Due to the delays, we spent Sunday night in Miami at a Holiday Inn near the airport. We were stunned by how much Spanish and Portuguese we heard spoken. According to Wiki, 74.55% of Miami´s populations speaks a language other than English at home. The time at the hotel was broken up with a trip to a nearby sports-bar for lunch and a few heated hands of hearts, a strategic card game.

Despite the complications, we still arrived in Nejapa this evening in time for a delicious dinner at Los Ranchos. The hostel´s talented culinary staff fed us a heaping plate of chicken, vegetables, and baked potato. With our bellies full and a comfortable bed awaiting us to rest for the night, we look forward to starting work tomorrow. Although our timeframe has been compressed by a day, we have it planned out to finish everything with enough time to see "Bolas de Fuego", a regional festival where gas soaked rags are thrown like snowballs, as well as few nearby sites.