Water Tanks and Colonial Style Social Networks

Today, as in colonial times, these public water tanks and washbasins serve as the places for doing the laundry and for water distribution. Furthermore, public laundry washbasins (sometimes river or lake shores) serve as the gathering place for news, gossip and community building through the interactions that take place. Public washbasins could be considered the first news broadcasting sites or social networks such as Facebook or Twitter; computers are not required. In many places in Guatemala this stills holds true.

As I took these pictures, I took the time to talk to several of the women doing the laundry and I asked what were some of the reasons for utilizing the public washbasins even though most of them have running water at home. These are some of the answers:

• Los lavaderos públicos, public washbasins are more comfortable because they are larger and the water is closer.
• At the lavaderos públicos, public washbasins I get to see and talk to my friends and neighbors.
• Los lavaderos públicos, public washbasins have plentiful of free water.
• At the lavaderos públicos, public washbasins I get to see things and people, sort of free entertainment.
• Los lavaderos públicos, public washbasins provide less distractions than being at home doing the laundry.
• At the lavaderos públicos, public washbasins the temperatures are cooler and thus more comfortable.
• Los lavaderos públicos, public washbasins are my only choice since I do not have running water at home.

This morning Kwallek asked the following questions:

Things that matter with water wells: what are they casing off the bore with, is it cased all the way to the water table, is it potable the way it comes out of the ground, what is the recovery rate, how deep is the water and depth or thickness of the water table.

And tonight we already have the answers, thanks to Ted from Wells of Hope.

Steel well casing is used. Because of the earthquakes that are possible in Guatemala, the well should be completely cased to the aquifer, which will prevent the well from collapsing if there were tremors in the area. We have found that the water in the mountains of Jalapa is very potable directly from the well. A 24 hour pump test is done after drilling a well. This helps us to determine how much water we can safely remove from the aquifer without extensively drawing down the water table or drying the aquifer. Every well is different when it comes to recovery rate. It is very difficult to determine the dimensions of the water table. It is only through the use of very expensive measuring equipment and extensive study that one can propose a dimension of a water table. Our volunteer program does not have the necessary finances in order to do this.

What do think of public washbasins and water tanks?

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