Of all days to finally wear a long sleeve shirt to shield myself from the winds up in the cool San Cristobal, the sun decided to shine so brightly that we would probably have been able to cook lunch on the hard concrete.

Today I got my first taste of doing “fieldwork”, and by that I mean setting up rudimentary taste tests for the people in Cantaro Azul to try out. Over the past few days, I found out that the explanation that the children dislike drinking rainwater due to its taste was an assumption. I initially felt very disillusioned, because that was the very basis for our project. We wanted to design a device to mineralize rainwater to improve its taste, but if taste wasn’t really the issue, then what was our device really for? I talked about it with Dr. Loyo over the weekend, and I guess it really helped me to see things in a different light.

He talked about how non-profits often do not have the time to really go through the entire thought process step-by-step as they come up with initiatives for the communities. This happens for various reasons – insufficient staff members to delve into researching the issues in full, urgency to work on tangible technologies after receiving funding, lack of literature available on the topic in that specific context, etc. It made me feel that maybe I could explore these issues more since I had the time, and didn’t have anything very urgent to do here.

I’m slowly starting to discover what my role here could be, and feel more comfortable with it too. I didn’t have to get that involved with prototyping, technology, or even solving problems. As a volunteer, I am more of an additional pair of hands that could support Cantaro Azul’s work. Most of my work here seems to deal with data collection and planning, and while my small contributions won’t be revolutionary or game-changing, maybe they could give Cantaro Azul a systematic way to evaluate their thoughts. I found out that the day we’re scheduled to go to the schools is the day of the schools’ Mothers’ Day celebrations, thus I might not be able to actually conduct the taste tests. But that doesn’t matter – it would be enough if I could come up with a general procedure that can be replicated if the organization chooses to do a taste test in the future too.

I spent the weekend working out the details of the taste test with Dr. Loyo, and decided on two tests – the triangle test, and the flavor threshold test. With the triangle test, participants would be given 2 cups of hard water and 1 cup of rainwater, and asked to identify which water tastes different, in what way, and which water they prefer. This will allow us to find out whether the children can really discern the difference in the taste of hard water and rainwater. If we find that they can do so, then we will use the flavor threshold test to find out exactly at what level of hardness do they notice a difference. The results of the threshold test will give future teams information on what level of hardness to aim for.

It was really interesting thinking about the taste test. It’s much more challenging and thought-provoking to think of it and how it can be conducted in the field. I feel that when we’re really tasked with doing something we think of it in a different way than if we were to just brainstorm and plan it on paper. I carefully visualized the way I would do the test, the environment, the people, etc. to assess whether my plan would be feasible. It made me reflect on my entire experience in the CEVE 314 class. From the beginning, we were given a topic description and an end-goal to work towards. We were told that we could go on a trip to visit Cantaro Azul if we wanted, and I was interested but hesitant too. It was only when Sinead came to visit us that I truly knew I wanted to go on this trip. Being able to match a face to the project made me take the project much more seriously as it brought a very human element to the project.

I guess I started linking this to many other aspects of my education too. In my policy studies class, I’ve written more than 10 papers discussing public policy issues and how they should be addressed. I’ve researched topics I am very familiar with, and topics I know almost nothing about. Each time, as I write the paper, I probably scratch the surface of the issue, and only catch a small glimpse of the full complexity behind it. We often also hear criticisms of authority figures for being disconnected from the public. True, they may be very intelligent and have a strong grasp over what’s happening, but maybe more personal interactions with their people would help them see things in a more humane and emotional way, and perhaps this would affect their perspective on policies. Another example close to heart would be climate change. I remember this article written by Dr. Dominic Boyer from Rice University about how a rural community in Oaxaca fervently rejected having wind farms built on their land despite the huge benefits they would bring to Mexico. Dr. Boyer said in class that he felt very disappointed with the project’s failure, but after visiting the community for his research, he started to understand why they fought so hard to bring down the wind farms.

Anyway, I spent a huge part of today working on a simple and similar taste test to pilot with Cantaro Azul in the office so I would get a better idea of the test’s feasibility. I added salt to water and diluted them to get different taste, using conductivity as a measure of the salt content. With Horatia and Sophia’s help, we prepared a pitcher with salty water (~1000µS/cm), a second pitcher with slightly salty water (~600µS/cm), and another pitcher with the normal garrafone water they get and disinfect from the tap (~360µS/cm). Thereafter, Sinead helped me get some of her coworkers to try out the test, and it was much more amusing than expected. Her coworkers all seemed very excited and eager to try, and with the limited Spanish I knew I could pick out them joking with each other. If anything, doing the taste test pilot with Cantaro Azul helped me get to know some of the staff members better. Most people could distinguish the salty water, which was expected, but a surprising finding was that most of them also preferred the slightly salty water over the normal garrafone water! Seems like people here aren’t that satisfied with their water… :p

Tomorrow will be a long day – we set off for the schools at 8 in the morning. I guess I just hope it goes fine, and that regardless we can learn something from the experience. Last Friday, Dr. Reygadas told us that we didn’t have to worry about solving problems for them, but encouraged us to do whatever would contribute to our learning. It was a blunt statement that young optimistic dreamers like us would instinctively reject, but I appreciated the straightforwardness, and also respected him for his understanding of how volunteering was like in reality. And he was right in many ways. Trips like these are more for us than for the organization, and maybe we can contribute in some ways. But I guess the bulk of the benefit also comes from what we take away from the journey and share with our friends.

-Su Chen