Datanli

This morning we are on our way to Datanli. The one day that Miguel is early, he had to wait on us for a few minutes. We begin walking to the officina de el alcade office of the mayor. I am hoping that we will be able to being the paperwork. But, I am not sure what today will be like.
We arrive at the office and see a truck being worked. on. After a few minutes we assume that this is the truck that we are taking. How lucky are we. :) We wait a little longer for the people going to all show up and paperwork to be finished and then we are off. The ride to Datanli is not bad. We arrive in Datanli and find out that no one has prepared for our arrival. No one knows that we are going to have a meeting. I sort have expected that by now. We also got to see the new church building for the Church in Datanli. It is rather nice, large too. It should be finished in 2 months and I hope that we will be able to see it finished before we leave. I also got to meet with the new pastor of the church. He seems very nice.

We went to the community building. While we were waiting for the meeting to start. Courtney and I met two Peace Corps volunteers. Kara and Simon, a married couple from California. I was really excited to meet them. After talking with them for a while, they said that they would help us on Thursday.

The meeting started with Courtney and me introducing ourselves and the water project. The meeting lasted a long time. There was a lot of talk about future things that could not happen if we do not get paperwork done, and the engineer here. After the meeting was over we arrived at the conclusion that Thursday we will return and have a meeting to get the committee started. And Friday there is another meeting with other people that I am not sure why but Courtney and I do not have to go to it.

After we left the meeting we went to see the water system. I have not been able to fully understand the water system. I hope that after seeing it will help me understand it better. And I was right I do.


The water system is very simple. A pump, pumps the water into the tank. Once a week a guy puts two handfuls of Chlorine into the tank. The water flows under the pump house down the mountain and to both communities: Datanli and Los Robles. Here are the photos.

One the way back Courtney and I were offered unripe mangos. They were delicious. The green mangos were very sour and hard. They reminded me of the yellow warheads. Man I loved those. We arrived at the hotel around 4:30. We had not eaten much all day. Fanny was very worried about us, so she made us order food and eat it right away. I was not complaining because I was very hungry. It was like the Early Bird Special when we were eating. After relaxing a few hours, Courtney, Fanny and I took a taxi to the Pali. Not a horrible day.

Paz