The last two days were spent traveling to nearby schools and communities to gather data for Horatia and Su Chen’s prototypes. We had to wake up ridiculously early…7am is a killer when school’s out.

Pablo works in the schools program and accompanied us on the trip to a medium and large sized school, serving as the expert for any questions regarding the school kiosks. The medium sized school serves about 300 students and has a small structure housing Cántaro Azul’s water treatment system. The school is not connected to a piped water supply so they rely solely on rainwater collection from a nearby rooftop. This water fills a large storage tank (the Rotoplas) that can be pumped into the treatment kiosk as neeeded. Before entering the Rotoplas, the water passes through a settling container that Cántaro has named Tlaloque. Tlaloque serves as a primary separator of clean and dirty water to ease the burden of the later treatment processes, since the water collects a bit of dirt and leaves throughout its journey on the rooftop. I appreciate the chosen name for the water separator as it was obviously chosen purposefully by the schools program initiative to make water education a fun experience ~Tlaloque is the Aztec god of the rain~

The larger school serves over 1000 students, so its treatment kiosk was much bigger. As I previously mentioned, one of the main objective’s of Cántaro Azul’s school program is making water education interactive and fun. This was achieved at this school through the installation of a bike that pumps water through a narrow concrete water slide when pedaled, which I’d heard about, but was cool to see in person. This school is connected to a piped water supply that is utilized in relatively dry seasons, making large storage tanks for rainwater unnecessary. Using the piped water requires the addition of a slow sand filter in the treatment process, which serves as the primary method of treatment before sending the water through a membrane filter, activated carbon filter, and finally a UV disinfection chamber. Relatively uncontaminated, the collected rainwater can bypass the slow sand filter and go directly into the other filters. Therefore, this school’s decontaminated water is composed of both piped water and rainwater, which is an interesting consideration for Su Chen’s project.

After touring the kiosk, we gathered around a water fountain attached to the outside of it, and sampled the water. I admired the design as all water drained into a small flower pot~yay green design! I noticed a small group of children gathering around a nearby water fountain, which was given to the school by Coca-Cola. Once our group moved away from Cántaro’s fountain, the children ran toward it, revealing an obvious favoritism. Looking at Coca-Cola’s fountain, you could tell that it probably hadn’t been maintained and the water pressure was extremely low. The operator of the school’s kiosk even cracked a joke about kids having to basically put their entire mouth on the spout saying, “These kids are kissing each other and they don’t even know it!”

Another interesting aspect of the larger school was the presence of three different types of water treatment intervention: Cántaro Azul, Coca-Cola, and the government. The government installed a water fountain “black box” in 2010, but it was only used for about a year and half due to degradation of water quality and as mentioned above, Coca-Cola’s fountain was pretty much out of commission as well. Seeing the differences between each of these interventions led to discussions on Coca-Cola’s motivations, such as the company’s need for at least surface level health improving initiatives, and a community’s response to technology they don’t understand. Rather than simply installing another “black box,” Cántaro Azul opts for an open and interactive treatment system, taking the time to educate the community on the different processes. This approach ultimately cultivates an informed trust between the community and the organization, making it much more likely for the community to actually use the treatment system. As exhibited in the government’s “black box” installation, blind trust can only go so far.

Overall, visiting the schools the day before Mother’s Day was definitely a great cultural experience. Both schools were in full fledged fiesta mode by the time we arrived and we even got to observe a couple dance routines performed by the children, which were lively and entertaining to say the least. Quite the poppin’ holiday, but definitely makes me miss my own mama.

-Sophia