We got a call on Friday afternoon from the Peace Corps about the project, and Saturday I was on my way down. Poor Tom was a little under the weather at the time and didn’t care to brave the ten hour trip on a bus with no bathroom, so he stayed in Oki, where we have a lovely flushing toilet.
The Chaco is the dry southeastern region of Bolivia, and it spans the departments of Tarija, Chiquitania, and Santa Cruz. It’s a large, desert area with beautiful mountains and, during the rainy season, which we are currently in the midst of, lush vegetation and flowing rivers. I met up with some fellow volunteers in Villamontes on Sunday, and from there we traveled to Chimeo, a sweet little Chaco village where one of the volunteers lives and has worked to start the tree nursery and secure funding to build the tank.
Six a.m. Monday morning we set to work, clearing the area where we’d build the tank and where the nursery will be established. Twenty people from the village came to help out for the day, which was an incredible show of support. They kicked that jungle’s butt and cleared the way for the construction of the tank in three hours. It struck me as ironic watching them take down full grown trees with their machetes, clearing the thick jungle to the ground, so that we could plant more trees in order to reforest other areas that have been clear cut for the sale of timber. So it goes.
To build the tank we poured a circular base of concrete about two meters wide, made a skeleton wall about two meters high out of rebar and chicken wire, which we assembled by hand on the ground and then stood up in place, on top of the base. The walls were then covered in concrete, and then the domed roof put in place in a similar fashion with rebar, wire, and concrete. It took five days to finish the tank, with the help of a number of members of the community, six volunteers, and a lot of rain slowing us down. It was an awesome week, and I was excited to be a part of a project that will contribute to the sustainability of a community’s resources, provide jobs, and protect the environment.
The rain catchment tank we built will hold ten thousand liters of water, collected from a roof that will be built over the tank. During the rainy season (roughly November to April), the tank will fill with rainfall and the trees will be watered naturally. During the dry season, when it is likely not to rain for more than six months straight, water from the tank will be used to keep the young trees alive and growing. Volunteers are building such tanks for human water consumption all over the Chaco as well. In this part of the country, water shortages are a very real problem and affect tens of thousands of people.
The beautiful new tank, all but the lid and spicket in place.
Assembling the dome lid of the tank. Amazing what you can do with some rebar and chicken wire.
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