Before heading to El Encuentro, I had to have a morning walk today too.
View of San Cris from Barrio del Cerrillo
Later this morning, the Loewenstern team, Iris, and I walked to El Encuentro, a private conservation area, whose owner has collaborated with Cántaro and other NGOs to preserve this area and test different water treatment technologies that are later used in rural communities around Chiapas and other areas in Mexico.
Map of El Encuentro
Cántaro Azul has built several structures within the park, such as the Casa del Agua, where they are installing a water quality testing lab. Casa del Agua was built with traditional building materials (adobe and wood), and has green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and a constructed wetland to treat greywater. The latter was designed and built with the help of Rice students during Spring Break and Loewenstern 2019.
Entrance to Casa del Agua
Bottles were used as decorative materials at Casa del Agua
The Tlaloque, a first flush diverter for rainwater harvesting systems designed by Isla Urbana, another Mexican NGO
A hand-washing station drains into the constructed wetland designed and built with the help of Rice students in 2019
The constructed wetland–it works!
Cántaro is now working on community-sized water treatment in addition to the POU systems that they have developed. They built a small treatment plant with multiple steps to test them in conditions closer to those in the rural communities around San Cris.
Community water treatment testbed at El Encuentro
Cántaro is also going full (water) circle and working on sanitation. They have installed composting toilets, and a constructed wetland to treat wastewater that was built during the pandemic and just finished last fall.
Composting toilet–not your average outhouse!
El Encuentro public toilets, built by Cántaro. They work like a regular toilet, but the wastewater is treated on-site.
Diagram of the wastewater treatment system for the public toilets at El Encuentro
Constructed wetland for wastewater treatment
After the tour of El Encuentro, the Loewenstern team sat down with Héctor, Pablo, and Julio to discuss the projects that they will be developing this summer, can’t wait to find out what they will be working on!
My day ended over tascalate and cake with Mila Morán, reminiscing about my first visit to Cántaro in 2014, right after she and Fermín moved to San Cris from Berkeley, and brainstorming about future collaborations with Rice.
Old friends