Our work on the Chuchurras water distribution project is complete. This has been an immense undertaking for everyone involved throughout the entire project's life. Summarizing the project history brings a tear to my eye thinking about all the stories created, people's lives changed, and lifelong relationships developed during this time. Our work started with the community in 2019 when Deepika led a team (Deepika, Chris, Brian Roth, Spencer, Josh, & Jackie) down to complete an

Thursday marked the team's last full day working in Chuchurras. After breakfast and making the trek from Iscozacín, the EWB members arrived to find the community volunteers and heavy machinery toiling to dig the trenches and set in place the distribution piping. The EWB team split into a couple of groups, one handling the distribution system work and the other handling the aspects of operator training at the well. Today the distribution system work required a road crossing

The start to the day looked a little different than our usual journey to Chuchurras in two ways: First, with help from Camilo (our driver) per the request of Rena, we listened to Amazon cumbia (traditional music of the Amazon region) on our morning commute. It's a little different than what's on the usual radio stations back in the States, but I have no doubt that we will find a way to get it on our Spotify playlists. Second, instead of stopping once we arrived in Chuchurra

We woke up to thunder cracks, I peaked through my shades and sure enough, we have a down pour. Break out the rain gear; we still have work to do. We hopped some puddles to breakfast, and I drank that amazing Peruvian coffee to get the day started. Off to Chuchurras we went. Chris and I went to the well house to crank up the system and troubleshoot some controls while both Brians and Sarai worked on presenting the O&M manual. Rena and Paige are back in the trenches taking car

The team began the day with a hearty breakfast of lomo saltado and streusel (yes, the German bakery item in Peruvian form) at Pepe Grillo restaurant. After a miscommunication, we rode into Chuchurras in Camilo's truck which, as always, is scenic; passing through lush forest and verdant grazing land along the river. Once the team arrived on site, we met the community leaders. Also in attendance was our electrician and his son who was driving a backhoe from Chuchurras. The chal

We arrived in Chuchurras this morning and were welcomed as friends by community leaders. We have the same team as the 2024 trip, so everyone is a familiar face this time! Together, we reviewed the goals for our time together: determine the final pipe alignments and tap stand locations, conduct operations & maintenance training with leaders, investigate chlorination, test water quality, and review anything else they have concerns about. A few new tap location requests were mad