Nicaragua- Trip and Celebration for Completion of El Trapiche Water System

On Thursday, December 1, 2016 I took off from Boulder with two friends from Rotary Club of Boulder Valley, John and Maud Kenyon, for a 10 day trip to Nicaragua. This was our second time there and the principle reason for the travel was to help the village of El Trapiche, near Jalapa in the north of the country, celebrated the completion of the rebuilding of their water system. Our Rotary

Club had provided funding and successfully applied for a Rotary International Global Grant to partially cover the costs of the project. After that we planned to see other parts of the country that we had missed on our previous trip. John, our photographer, would chronical our adventure.

We had originally visited the area in the spring of 2014 to participate in an inauguration ceremony to commemorate the finish of another water project in the small, nearby pueblo of Pasmata. As was done later in El Trapiche, BV Rotary had partnered with Boulder Friendship City Projects (FCP) and the area residents to finance and build the system. While there at that time, the local FCP

representative, Karla Pozo, introduced us to the impassioned Water and Sanitation Committee (CAPS) for El Trapiche. They explained to us that their antiquated, gravity-fed water system no longer worked well. It also was not designed to adequately supply the needs of a population that had increased many times  over to the then present 2000 inhabitants. FCP was already committed to the project and we agreed to see if we could find Rotary financing to cover the first two phases of the work; rebuilding the dam and replacing the downhill mainline pipe and pressure breaking boxes. FCP would try to fund phases 3 and 4, building a new collection tank at the base of the hill and establishing a network of piping from the tank to the individual homes. 8 Rotary clubs, District 5450 and Rotary International would end up donating $38,925 to this project.

Travelling with us was local resident Greg Bowles, an American who is married to a Nicaraguan and is also on the FCP Board. Greg has been involved in projects in the Jalapa Valley for at least 10 years and, in addition to being a very good traveling companion, is knowledgeable about all things Nicaraguan. On this trip we decided to forego riding on the cramped local buses and had Greg arrange for a car and driver.


We first stopped off in the town of Ocotal to lunch with the members of the Rotary Club there. This small club had acted as the required "Host Club" for the El Trapiche Rotary Grant. The meal was hosted at the Hotel Frontera, owned by member Maximo Ramos, and spirits were high due the end of a long, and sometimes difficult, grant process. They shared with us the very impressive marble plaque they had ordered to commemorate the endeavour.

That evening we checked into our old friend, the El Pantano Hotel in Jalapa. The next day, Saturday, December 3rd, we met up with the valuable Karla Pozo to visit a couple of potential future projects in the Jalapa area. Both Siuce and Santa Cruz are, like El Trapiche, small, but growing hamlets, spread across the side of a mountain. Unlike El Trapiche however, their sources of water are not secure. Siuce's present system is makeshift using hoses and is contaminated with the residue from the cultivation and processing of coffee. Santa Cruz' challenge is that their water supply volume is not adequate, especially the past few years of drought. Here for video.

Between ourselves we decided that we would need an engineering study of the two settlements' potential for reasonable solutions to their water problems before there would be any consideration about moving forward in any search for funding . We'll see if this gets done. This evening we arrived late at the home of Orlando Zeledon, who we first meet earlier in the year when he visited Boulder Valley Rotary. He and Marlon Matute have an interest in starting a Rotary Club in Jalapa, which would greatly assist us in writing future grants in the valley. They appear enthusiastic.

Next day, Sunday, we headed up in 4-wheelers and later on foot to inspect
the high-up source of water for the village of El Trapiche. With us was all of the Ocotal Rotary Club, the El Trapiche Water Committee and FCP representatives Karla and Greg.
The long, steep, narrow and slippery foot trail gave us great appreciation for
how difficult it was for the people of El Trapiche to just reach and carry equipment and materiel (think bags of cement, heavy steel pipes) to the dam construction site. And, that was before the back-breaking labor of digging the repository pool, removing boulders and where possible, burying the main pipeline.


Back down the mountain we visited the new holding tank and viewed the temporary holder for the plaque. Later all had lunch at the home of one of the CAPS members.

The afternoon was dedicated to the inauguration ceremony itself at the local primary school. Attendance was light, as no meal was offered because the $450 required was beyond the budget. Speeches were made, hands were shook, a raffle of 5 each picks and shovels was held and certificates were handed out. All and all, a good end to what sometimes seemed like an endless project. Here for video.

This concluded the "business" part of the trip. We now headed off to visit the old colonial towns of Leon and Granada, long the political polar opposites in Nicaragua's many centuries of civil wars.

"Liberal" Leon, founded in 1524, as was Granada, is located north of the capital city of Managua. Streets are narrow and crowded. We spent Monday night there, as I was ill for part of the time, I only got a chance to walk around the central area on Tuesday morning, including a visit to their art museum and impressive cathedral.

Tuesday night we stayed at Greg and his wife's spread south of "conservative" Granada. They recently moved in and Greg has what appears to be an endless list of projects he hopes to accomplish there. On the way to Greg's we did look down at Masaya Volcano to see molten lava.

Granada sits on the bank of massive Lake Nicaragua, with broader streets than Leon and a more prominent foreign presence. Only a morning there, but I was impressed with their museum, especially the display of the newest thing, Nicaraguan "primitivista paintings."

Wednesday afternoon we flew across the country to Nicaragua's Corn Island off the east coast in the Caribbean. This rustic jewel was perfect for us. No fancy resorts, just small outfits with cabanas. The dark skinned population speaks good English (the island was colonized by English pirates and escaped slaves from the British Caribbean Islands) and the Spanish that is taught in schools.

Two days there, with a lot of rain that took little away from our enjoyment of the experience, and back to cold, late autumn weather in Boulder, Colorado.