Finally! We are very happy to have some news to report about the water project in San Martin.

To be honest, I have been putting off writing this blog post. While we have been working with the community leaders and City Hall to form a Community Water Committee that will be in charge of maintaining the system, meter-reading, and bookkeeping, we have also been waiting…and waiting…and waiting for the owner of the water source to sign the necessary legal documents to donate the spring to the community. Without this document signed, we could not move forward.

The owner is a local coffee farmer, and for the past few months (the height of the coffee harvest in Nicaragua) he has been, understandably, very busy. Of course, this has meant no little amount of stress for us, as we got closer and closer to the dry season. Water projects must be built in the dry season in order to ensure that the water level at the source will maintain the population year round. For this reason, the best months for a water project are March and April. Meanwhile, the coffee harvest is roughly from November to March, so the owner of the water source was almost impossible to locate until very recently.

The newly-formed Water Committee had worked tirelessly to get their documentation in order, and this was the last puzzle piece missing. We received a call on Monday morning that they had finally caught up with the owner, met with him, and he signed the papers to finalize the donation. This means that we can finally move forward with the project! And just in time to take advantage of the dry weather.

We will continue to post updates here and on our FB page. Thanks to all who participated in last year’s fundraiser to make this project a reality, and who continue to support our work in San Ramón!