Pine Ridge, South Dakota part 1

I arrived at the Pine Ridge reservation in Southwest South Dakota three days ago. I am here along with one other MIT student, Allison Brown, to work as interns for the Oglala Lakota tribe's environmental protection program. We have spent the last few days mostly just getting our bearings, learning about all the different tribal programs and about the organizational structure and realities of the reservation.

We are living with a host family outside of Wounded Knee (yes, the Wounded Knee of the Wounded Knee massacre). As with most houses around here it is a small, perfect rectangular shaped one-story "trailer house," perched on a ridge overlooking a huge expanse of rolling hills with pine trees. It is absolutely stunning [The first photo is of the view from the back deck]. And since there is running water, a real mattress, a stove, and a washing machine, I feel like I'm living the high life after Ecuador. Michael Herd Many Horses, who we are living with, is a walking library of tribal history and is fascinating to talk with. [Second Photo is of the badlands from the drive in]

The office is in Pine Ridge, the only real population center on the res. It has one big intersection, a gas station, a couple of restaurants, two high schools, an IHS hospital, and all of the tribal government offices. It looks like we will be working on a couple of different projects -- one to get the Oglala Lakota College lab state certified to process water quality samples (that way the tribal programs don't have to drive up to rapid city to drop off samples at a lab there and they'll be able to keep the money on the reservation). The other one is investigating the impact of septic system drainage fields on water quality. [Photo is of me in front of the Environmental Protection Program office].

Yesterday we got a tour of the water infrastructure facilities for the reservation. Right now they use a network of groundwater pumps, water towers, and distribution lines. Chlorine and fluoride are dosed automatically into the inflowing water, and they run all of the standard water quality checks for US drinking water systems. It was amazing for me to see all this after working in Ecuador -- this is how a real water system is supposed to work! There are also about 300 families that aren't hooked up to the distribution system and are waiting to be added once a new surface water line is brought in from the Missouri River. For now, they get a 65 gallon tank of water delivered once a week. Considering how many people often live in the small homes on the reservation (10 or 12 is not uncommon), it has got to be a real stretch to make 65 gallons last a week. [Photo of PVC pipes with gaskets that auto-seal together instead of requiring glue. I have never seen these in Ecuador but they are standard here -- the tribe's Department of Water Maintenance and Conservation says they won't touch the ones with glue fittings because they break down after 10-15 years. Bad news for Santa Ana]

Tomorrow will be my first 4th of July in the US for a long time. We have the day off work and it is going to be interesting to see how the festivities proceed around here.

Some of you have asked about my plans for applying to medical school in Cuba -- so far there is little to report. I am still planning on applying (the deadline is the end of September) and continue to investigate the pro's and con's of this route as I continue to apply to American medical schools as well.

Ecuador 2008 - part 2

It sounded so easy -- fill the filter from the bottom with water from the elevated water tower to alleviate air binding. It seemed even easier after we were able to get the entire bottom flow installation taken care of within the first three days of our stay in Santa Ana. We thought we could fill it up the next day and have lots of time to troubleshoot the slow sand filter and train everyone in the use of the chlorinator. But then we found a leak in the pipe that ran down to the filter. We patched it, and waited 24 hours for the glue to set. On the next attempt, part of our installation popped apart under the pressure (Noe and Esteban who had been doing the gluing of PVC parts had missed one section). Glue, wait, try again. Another part popped off, dumping the activated carbon on the ground. Glue, wait, try again. It holds. By then it was Thursday, and all day long we kept checking back, hopeful that we would see a layer of water rising up out of the sand bed. Nope.

It wasn't until Friday morning (our second-to-last day of work) that we finally saw water break through the surface of the slow sand filter, indicating that we had successfully filled it from the bottom. After much celebration we were finally able to put the filter back online along with the chlorinator. Luckily that all went smoothly and effectively, so the system is now officially working!

On Friday we also did a set of activities about water, bacteria, hand washing, and chlorine with the first through sixth graders at the elementary school in Santa Ana. The photo is of me explaining to some 1st-3rd graders how to measure chlorine using the test kits we left with them.

On Friday I was reminded of something that I am always underestimating -- how complicated the chlorination part of the process really is. The operator has to measure how many seconds it takes to fill a 10 liter bucket of water, use that to calculate the flow rate in liters per second, and multiply by 236 to find the number of milliliters of granulated chlorine required for three days. Then he/she must add 300 liters of water to the chlorinator along with the right amount of chlorine, and assure that the solution is dripping out at a rate of 100 milliliters in 86 seconds. Francisco did an admirable job of learning this process in the space of two days, Friday and Saturday, over which time we made him do the whole thing twice through.












Saturday night, as always, the community cooked up a big feast served on large banana leaves and strung out wires for a boom-box and two lightbulbs. With that we danced all night long -- everyone from grandmas to toddlers dancing to traditional Kichwa music and Ecuadorian cumbias, periodically interrupted by performances from various youth groups. Along with the usual traditional dances, this time we saw a few break dance numbers from some of the young boys in the community, spinning and twisting to some kind of rap in Spanish. Every time the wiring went bad for the boom box they would switch to the traditional drum dance with one man and one woman while they worked to reconnect the cables. I can truly say that these parties in Santa Ana are by far my favorite of any I have attended.

Ecuador 2008 - part 1

I´ve been in Ecuador for the last 9 days or so with two other students from MIT, Fatima and Cassie. We have been working to advance the water project in Santa Ana while I mentor Fatima and Cassie in the technical and social aspects of this sort of work in a tiny rainforest community with unique customs, language, culture, and individuals.

Generally things have been going quite well. The water system functioned for about two months straight after Fernando and i left last time (February and March), which is unprecedented : ) Then the community lost electricity for two weeks and couldn´t use the pump, and it seems like the operator and water board kind of stepped back from that point on and left the system essentially not working. On Monday the community decided to scale down the water board and have the president of the water board be the same as the president of the community, and keep only the secretary and treasurer. The theory is that among fewer people they can coordinate better and avoid the problems of five people trying to run something. Given the people that are in these positions, i think it will work out well.

They also elected a new operator, Francisco Vargas. He is probably the most enthusiastic operator I´ve trained so far -- he has spent all day every day with us since acquiring the position and at the end of the day when we are getting tired it is Francisco who suggests something else that needs to be done. This gives me great hope for his ability to take responsibility and initiative to keep the system running.

We have installed a new connection to enable the community to fill the slow sand filter from the bottom. This is the proper way to initiate a slow sand filter and was never installed in this community. Last night we were finally able to start filling after days of acquiring misfitting parts and fixing this and that. Hopefully by the end of the day today it will be filled and they can put the filter into functioning again... Sorry about the low quality of my english. I talk about all these things in spanish so much that my mind is translating spanish to english instead of thinking in english. Sigh.. Anyway, we hope by this new connection we will eliminate air-binding and increase the flow rate of the filter.

We have taught the operator and the water board president (Telmo) how to use the coliform testing. While I make purchase some tools and supplies in town today, Fatima and Cassie are helping Francisco and Telmo teach others in the community how the testing works. They are all so excited to have this capability in the community, something that can´t even be done in Puyo! Francisco and Telmo made some very astute observations when they saw the results, and it never ceases to be a really powerful experience when they get to actually see the differences in quality between river water, rain water, ground water seeps, boiled water, and water with chlorine. They get to see how much cleaner rain water is if it is kept in an enclosed container with no way for people or animals to touch it as opposed to an open bucket where people dip in cups to extract water. They get to see how boiled water can also be contaminated if it wasn´t boiled long enough. And they get to see the sky blue paper of the water with chlorine.

In our house to house surveys (we have done over 20 so far) we have found that the majority of people are now in favor of using chlorine in the water system, which is a big change from the first summer we spent here. Overall, progress is slow of course but the change has been enormous since the first summer. I can tell the community now with confidence that they have the knoweledge and tools to make this system work, and they look back at me and know that it is true. There is nothing that can compare to knowing that I have been a part of such a process of transformation.

I have to go catch a bus. I will write again with some fun stories, for there are many.

Folding Bridge

I just realized I forgot to write about one of the
coolest things that I did this semester: design and
build a ten-foot pedestrian bridge with my team in my
"senior"civil and environmental engineering design
class. We were tasked with designing a bridge that would
hold 2,000 lbs, but it could be any style we wanted.
Our group got inspired by  this bridge  and decided to
make ours a rolling bridge as well. But we flipped the
design upside down so that all of the bottom members of
the truss could be made out of cable (the bottom members
only act in tension, never in compression). This made it
so we didn't have to make any kind of bracing mechanism
for the bridge when it was extended. As you can see from
the pictures, the bridge turned out rather elegantly,
and successfully held 2,000 lbs.

From Ecuador to MIT

Sorry for making this so belated. I have a few things to update on -- the end of my time in Ecuador, a brief journey to Peru, and the start of a new semester at MIT.

First of all, Ecuador --

Looking back, the work we (Fernando and I, but actually more the community) accomplished exceeded my expectations. The water board really stepped up to take initiative and control of their water system. The first summer we were there, Froy and I had to lead the community along during meetings--teaching, guiding, directing the community practically every step of the way. But slowly they have learned to take on that role, and now know and understand the technical and administrative details such that Fernando and I hardly had to participate at all in the community meetings where they came together to make important decisions about the future of the water system. It was a real feeling of satisfaction to start to feel superfluous -- after all, that's the whole point!

At the end of the month, my mother came to Santa Ana for about a week. The whole community was extremely excited to host her, especially because she is now working with me to establish an ongoing "Art for Water" program to purchase ceramics and jewelry from the women in Santa Ana. The hope is to generate some income for the families, but also to bring the story of Santa Ana to the United States and raise money for the water system. It was a thrill for me to re-connect with my old artistic instincts -- the days back when I used to make all sorts of things with sticks, pine cones, feathers, and a pocket knife -- as I spent a few days learning and understanding the basics of their traditional art.

Check out this video I just finished producing that tells the story in a nutshell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K6lzmWYeUE
Also, if you haven't seen it yet, check out our website. I still need to update it based on the advances in January, but it still gives you the sense of what we are trying to do: http://www.sachayaku.org


Peru --

I went to Peru with the intention of visiting a clinic founded by an American doctor in the middle of the rain forest. I did get to see the clinic, and speak with the doctor about her experiences and perspectives, but what actually was the most amazing part of the trip was seeing the "deep jungle" that people in Santa Ana are always referring to. Santa Ana is higher in altitude, and mostly secondary forest, so it doesn't have the same trees, frogs, birds, fish as the interior. It was really hard for me to be in a touristy lodge with all sorts of services and amenities, but I did appreciate the chance to chat with communities in Peru and learn about how their communities and their environments differed from what has now become so familiar to me in Ecuador. People really opened up to me when I told them about my experiences in Ecuador, about the way my friends in Santa Ana eat particular foods or what they have taught me about different plants. I also got to see river dolphins, piranhas, poison dart frogs, ceiba trees and the like. The canoeist in me loved to see how the villagers all got around the area in dugout canoes.


Finally, MIT --

As you can expect, its a bit of a let down to be back to a world of problem sets, lecture halls, laboratories, and cement. I'm definitely over the hump, as they say, and feeling ready to start moving on from this place. Which is good, because I'm firming up plans to graduate at the end of next fall. Still, I hope to make the most of the opportunities I have here to meet amazing people, learn such diverse things, and be a part of some amazing projects. The big reason it has taken me so long to get this e-mail out is exactly because of one of those projects -- the environmental student group that Froy and I are a part of "Share a Vital Earth" just finished putting on a 3-day, campus-wide symposium on climate change. It has been exhilarating to see all of our hard work come together and for the event to get such great attendance, attention, and publicity. You can check out the events and related information on our website: http://climatechange.mit.edu


That's all for now. Its been a long time since I've heard from some of you so I'd love to hear a bit about what you are up do, how things are going, what you are passionate about these days.

Last but not least, I've uploaded some pictures on Snapfish for you to check out if you are interested: http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=232161203202315605/l=

351920988/g=25494886/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Love,
Kendra

a long overdue hello from wisconsin

Hi everyone,

Its been a long time since i've written you all... mostly because this semester was a whole lot of problem sets, ten page lab reports, and studying for days on end for organic-chemistry exams, intermixed with a whole lot of wishing I had more time to spend on the things that I really care about.

But now the semester is over, and I'm home with family, which is really nice. I did manage to get a few meaningful things into the semester that are exciting and inspiring for me. One is that our bicycle-powered laptop has been placed in the campus gym where more and more people are using it. There are a few videos online about the bike that you can check out if you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSX1Tf3wbQI

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=11673

The next is that on January 3rd I leave for Ecuador, to work with the same community on some lingering technical issues in the water system, as well as start a program (with the help of my mom) where we will purchase traditional ceramics and jewelry from the women in Santa Ana and sell them in the US as an income-generating program and to sustainably support the water system. We've almost got a website up and running for this project, so I'll send it out when we do!

The last thing is a three day symposium on climate change at MIT that Froy and I's environmental group have been organizing for february 2008... we're going to have about 15 events in all sorts of different departments with the goal of connecting and engaging students from all different disciplines to bring their energy and skills to bear on the challenge of mitigating and adapting to climate change.

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season with your families and friends.

With much love,

Kendra

P.S. As much as I think about the climate change issue, I couldn't resist including my latest thoughts on this for those who care to read them:

I have to say that is hard for me to remain optimistic about the future of our planet with climate change. The predicted consequences -- droughts, more tropical storms and hurricanes, flooding of coastal lowlands, etc sound like things we can adapt to, like we always have. And that may be true, at least for a while, for those of us who have enough money, insurance, status, etc to always ensure ourselves plenty of food to eat and a new place to live. But it is not true for billions of people in this world. These are the people who will be hit soonest and hardest, and ironically they have the least responsibility for the emissions that are causing the problem in the first place.

Here's an excerpt from an article from the Guardian http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/10/30/the-road-well-travelled/

He is quoting a UN report on the state of the planet:

“If present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress.” Wastage and deforestation are partly to blame, but the biggest cause of the coming droughts is climate change. Rainfall will decline most in the places in greatest need of water. So how, unless we engineer a sudden decline in carbon emissions, is the world to be fed? How, in many countries, will we prevent the social collapse that failure will cause?

The stone drops into the pond and a second later it is smooth again. You will turn the page and carry on with your life. Last week we learnt that climate change could eliminate half the world’s species(9); that 25 primate species are already slipping into extinction(10); that biological repositories of carbon are beginning to release it, decades ahead of schedule(11). But everyone is watching and waiting for everyone else to move. The unspoken universal thought is this: “if it were really so serious, surely someone would do something?”

And that's really the problem... Hurricane Katrina, the droughts in the Southeast, Fires in the west... none of this things can be proven to have been caused by climate change, even though all the science says these sorts of events are going to come harder and faster as climate change progresses. So no one has the urgency to say "we need to do whatever it takes to reduce emissions 80% or 98%, and I need to do whatever it takes in my own life" (the number depends on whether you think all countries should reduce relative to the amount they are emitting now or relative to their population size). And no, I'm not a believer in climate change as a complete doomsday scenario. The world will go on, life will go on. The question is whose lives and what world?

Part of the paradox of environmentalism is that in the best case scenario we fix the problem and people should look back say "well what was the big fuss about?" We managed to do enough about CFC's that caused ozone depletion and Sulfur emissions from fossil fuels that caused acid rain to get those problems under control (to a certain extent, the problem is still around in other countries) such that looking back we might be tempted to say, what were all those environmentalists worried about? I hope that we manage to do enough about climate change that you all look back at this e-mail and think "why was she so worried?" But until the world and especially the united states really step up to the plate on this, I'll remain worried.

If anyone wants to contradict or debate, or talk more about this issue more, I'd love to talk with you -- just send me an e-mail!!

photos, anecdotes, and thoughts on life plans

queridos amigos y familia (dear friends and family),

I'm writing with some thoughts about my future life path and with
some random anecdotes about mexico.

first the random anecdotes, things that I found curious at first and
come up regularly in conversation here because of course people find
our way of doing things just as curious.

1) Last names. The tradition here is that everyone has 2 last names,
first the (first) last name of their father and then the (first) last
name of the mother. Nobody changes their name upon getting married.
For example the daughter of father Juan Tellez Solis and mother Maria
Bautista Hernandez would be named something like Araceli Tellez
Bautista. Rather less chauvinistic than the traditional american
system, although the female line only lasts for one generation; you
still end up with the two last names of the grandfathers, never
grandmothers.

2) Naming newborns. It is common practice here to have a baby and
then take as much time as needed to name it...babies go weeks or even
months without a name -- they are simply called "baby" "cutie" "my
love" until the family decides on a name. The woman I saw give birth
has invited me over to her house a couple of times and the boy is 20
days old and still doesn't have a name. She lives in a 'city' but
cooks over a fire and lives with another sister and her mother and
all their respective children. its a really crazy, warm, wonderful
home with many aunts and uncles younger than their nieces)

3) Hospital records. A random note, but as a result of these naming
practices (and other reasons) the hospital records here are organized
by household, then by neighborhood. If the patient doesn't know their
household number, we have to look them up in the registries based on
how the children in that household are named (Tellez Bautista in the
above example). You also see infants records with the first name
written in later with a different color ink, etc, because the infant
didn't have a name when it came in for its first vaccinations, etc.

4) Signatures. Here, a signature is a work of art, with elegant
loops, squiggles, and dots. They usually includes the initials of the
person but never the whole name and are generally more circular/
square in shape than our long cursive-based signatures. People laugh
at my signature, the way I laughed at Froy's signature the first time
I saw it.

Now, the thoughts on my life path... I've been really loving working
at the hospital, learning a little more every day, teaching health
education classes, and chatting with patients as they wait to be seen
or for their treatment to kick in. I'm almost positive that I really
want to do this, I want to be a doctor, I want to have the knowledge
to promote health and treat illness. I am also sure that I want to do
this in an under-served community somewhere in the world and work
under a more comprehensive definition of health care that includes
things like environmental health, potable water, community relations.

How I will manage that remains to be seen, but one distinct
possibility is that I will study medicine here in Mexico, or in Cuba,
instead of in the US. The advantages would be avoiding $100,000 of
debt that I would accrue studying in the US (and be pretty much
locked into working in the US for a period of time to pay it off), I
would learn medicine in Spanish which greatly expands the countries
in need where I could work, and I'd avoid the arrogance and
bureaucracy of an American medical school... Of course there many
disadvantages and challenges, like getting permission from the US
govt to study in Cuba should I be accepted (check out the program, it
is AMAZING and would be a dream to study there: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_School_of_Medicine_(Cuba)
passing the entrance exam to a school in mexico (ie SAT in spanish
plus chemistry, biology, and mexican history).

Lots to think about, and its going to be an interesting choice... in
August i'm going to visit one medical school in Mexico with a friend
of Froy's so I can get a better idea of the reality of studying here.

Much love to all,
Kendr

ps check out the photos i've uploaded: http://www1.snapfish.com/
thumbnailshare/AlbumID=

166589375/a=25494886/t_=25494886

I think you have to make a snapfish account to see them...sorry about
that. It's free and I think you even get 20 free photo prints when
you join.