Report on the January 2004 Trip to Peru by the UML Crew [April 27, 2004] From Jan. 12 until Jan. 27, 2004 we made our fourteenth trip to Peru from U Mass Lowell to serve the people in remote villages in the mountains and in the process to learn and develop professionally and personally. What follows is an informal report on what we did and discovered. Our Group Eight of us worked together in the mountains: • Lisa Gamache, a mechanical engineering senior, • Darcy Hornberger, also a mechanical engineering senior, • Lesley Hirl, a senior in nursing, • Megan Baldwin, an epidemiology graduate student in the Work Environment Department, • Steve DaSilva, a graduate student in the mechanical engineering program (second trip), • Hector Valdes, a graduate of the mechanical engineering department and now Project Manager with the Office of Economic Development at UML, • Jesús Solis, a graduate of UNI, who lives in Lima (fourth trip), • John Duffy, professor, coordinator of the solar engineering program (twelfth trip)
[The Crew, from left to right, Megan, Steve, Lisa, Darcy, Lesley, Jesus, and Hector in Malvas]
What We Did Following are some of our key accomplishments: • Finished the solar water pump and water distribution system for Huayash (with 100 people) and the sand filtration system (Darcy, Steve, Hector, and Jesús worked for several days in Huayash). Previously, the people got their water in buckets from the river nearby. Since last July, the folks connected the water supply tank with many houses. A 74-year-old man, who was helping to paint the pipes and tanks, said he never in his life had water in his house before this system! We also provided the folks with an additional 2 solar panels and battery to pump even more water since they were running out.
[The sand filtration system (yellow) and the filtered water tank (blue), Huayash]
[Turning on the water from the water storage tank fed by a solar pump to the sand filters, Huayash] • Transceiver radios and antennas in the towns of Port of Huarmey and Chacchan. They are now important links in our radio networks for Huarmey and Casma hospitals. These towns have electricity, so no solar panels were needed.
[Helpers in Chacchan installing the antenna] • We installed a complete solar radio and light system in the clinic at Fortaleza at an elevation of about 3000 m (10,000 ft). We did not finish the installation until about midnight and decided to spend the night in the clinic rather than drive down the narrow bumpy road in the dark. We also traveled to Colcabamba to repair the solar radio system there. Now the clinics in Pumapucllanan, Cochabamba, Cipre, Chacchan, Colcabamba, Fortaleza, and Pariacoto can network with each other. Pariacoto can communicate with the main hospital in Casma with another existing short wave radio system.
[Nurse Antonia testing the radio system. Fortunately, it worked the first time.] • We continued with our nutrition and health surveys at the new clinics. We were able to obtain a significant amount of data from the Huarmey hospital on a CD. We also distributed donations of medicine and supplies that Lara Thompson (from the last trip) donated and that Lesley obtained. • In the clinic in Huamba, we installed another fluorescent light in one of the offices and a nebulizer donated by a family in Winchester (my home town). This clinic is a micro-center for other clinics and has four staff serving about a thousand people, so we have a vaccine fridge, several lights, an extra hand radio, and now four nebulizers (a lot of asthma around). We stayed overnight in the clinic, and a sixteen-year-old delivered a baby in the early morning. Lesley was quite thrilled to be able to help with the delivery.
[Lesley helping to clean up the boy just after his birth, Huamba]
[The doctor and obstetrician enjoying the new light, Huamba] • We installed an extra solar panel at the school in San Miguel for the two laptops. Many of the laptops are failing, and there is a need for many more in the clinics and schools. Any donations would be greatly appreciated.
[Steve installing a PV panel donated by Evergreen Solar, San Miguel school] • Also in San Miguel we installed a new inverter in the hydro system. We had some difficulties with previous units, so we changed the wiring to protect the inverter from voltage spikes. The folks in the town had extended the wiring to town buildings for lights. • The aquaculture systems for Malvas (trout) and San Miguel (crayfish) in cooperation with local farmers have made great progress. We anticipate these systems to be self-sustaining and to result in better nutrition for the villages. Through our friend Alfredo Oliveros, who teaches solar engineering at UNI, we got additional technical information from the Instituto Tecnologico Pesquero del Peru about raising trout, which we passed on to Pisceno Rosales, who has built a cement tank on his farm for trout. It is just about ready for baby trout. There are two crayfish farmers in San Miguel that have built ponds. Some of the crayfish in one are just about ready for harvest.
[Manuel Foyeto catching crayfish in his pond, San Miguel]
[Trout tank almost finished, with Pisceno’s son Luis, Malvas] • As part of a possible new avenue of involvement, we inquired at the hospital in Huarmey about people with disabilities for whom we might be able to design and build equipment. Within ten minutes we had two people at the hospital along with the head of local foundation to help folks with disabilities. We met fourteen-year-old Yaveth who lost her left leg when she was four. The prosthesis she now has is four years old, is too short, and is causing problems with her hip and back as well as her mobility. Now Lisa and Darcy, along with another student, Joy, are now designing and building a new, better leg as their capstone course project.
[Darcy, Lisa, Yaveth, Lesley, Huarmey Hospital] • We performed a lot of preventive maintenance and small repairs in many clinics and schools. We installed a new vaccine refrigerator in Quian (courtesy of the Rotary of Dracut). • We passed along some donations: funds to finish a road into the town of Utcu (from my Aunt Kay) and funds to put up half the roof on a new church in San Miguel (courtesy of St. Mary’s Parish in Winchester, MA). The original church in San Miguel was destroyed by El Niño rains in 1998. The people in the town have been slowly building a new one of cement.
[The church being built in San Miguel] • We also ran into a few snags at the beginning of the trip and at the end. We spent the first night sleeping on the floor at the airport in Lima waiting from about 11 pm until 8 am in the morning because the night shift customs agent would not let us take in our donated equipment without letters from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education (which would take days, with no assurance that we would ever get the equipment back). Fortunately, we were able to convince the day shift agent that the radios and other donated equipment would save lives in our remote villages, and he let us through. On the way back, our flight out of Lima was postponed because the flight crew got food poisoning, so we had to spend the night in Lima. We left the next afternoon but missed a connection in Atlanta and had to spend the night there. So we got home about 24 hours late. Acknowledgements Of course, many others were involved with the project besides those of us who actually traveled down. Father Paul Soper started the project six years ago at the request of several undergraduates who wanted to get involved with international
service. Fr. Paul was the university chaplain for six years until June of 2002. He continues to inspire us and to help with fundraising. Our benefactors include: the Lindbergh Foundation; Rotary International and Rotary of Chelmsford and Dracut; William Hogan, UML Chancellor; St. Mary's Parish in Winchester; Fosta-Tek Optics; New England BioLabs Foundation; Friends of the Peru Project in Wellesley; ASE Americas, Evergreen Solar, and AstroPower for photovoltaic module donations; Partner’s Health Care for past laptop computer donations; and many individual donors, including several past student participants. Without our benefactors, we could not have installed over 50 systems in 20 towns. Thanks to Fr. Jack Maddigan and the Padres del Santiago Apostol for the use of their pickup for two and a half weeks. Thanks to pastor Fr. Paul Madden for letting us use the parish house in Huarmey to organize and store equipment and supplies. Thanks to the director of the hospital in Huarmey for arranging for drivers and trucks to take us to the medical posts. Future Work We have many requests for work that needs to be done for future trips: • Help start a small business making and selling solar lanterns. Thanks to New England BioLabs Foundation for a grant to start this process and to Salinee for her research and design of a prototype lantern. • Design and build a prosthesis for Yaveth in Huarmey (student capstone project). • Design and build and install a solar sterilizer for Huamba or Quian (capstone project). • Design and build and install a solar oxygen generator for Huamba (capstone project). • Design and build and install a solar water supply/purification system, probably for Quillapampa (100 people) (solar workshop project). • Install radios for clinics in Pampchancha, Casa Blanca, and Huanchay in the Casma network. • Make and install portable solar vaccine refrigerators for Pampachanca, Quillo, Colcabamba, Chanchan, Huanchuy, Gramita in the Casma system and other towns. • Develop more aquaculture systems in Malvas, San Miguel, and other towns. • Visit Ocros valley (south of Huarmey); clinics need radios. • Move Malvas' hydro turbine, possibly use for public lights. • PC and radio network for exchanging files and messages in the Huarmey and Casma networks.
• Help fix the leaking roof on Cochapeti church. • Install Huamba Baja hydro: 80 m head (601 m – 519 m) between irrigation canal and road level below; 30 m head cement tanks to road level at posta (559 m – 531 m). • Solar dryers for mint, camomile, oregano, and other herbs with Malvas (Prof. Piscino Rosales). • Help the clinic in Trujillo that Dra. Martiza (formerly in Cochapeti) works in. • Help former director of the Huarmey hospital who now heads the Red Cross in Huarmey in training of nurses Thanks to all of you for your support, on behalf of our friends in Cochapeti, Malvas, San Miguel, Huamba, Huayan, Molino, Quian, Raypa, Colcabamba, Cochabamba, Chipre, Pumapucllanan, Pariacoto, Erajirca, Huayash, Puerto Huarmey, Fortaleza, Chacchan, Huarmey, and Casma. I have to say finally, however, that we have essentially no funds left to support the project except the solar lantern development. Any help with contacts would be greatly appreciated.
John Duffy
P.S. A few comments by students, a chart of the systems installed, and a couple of University newsletter articles: Comments by students:
The hardest part of a volunteer nonprofit trip such as this is that you never feel like you have done enough. You must set goals in your mind ahead of time, and convince yourself that you did what you could, with the supplies you had, and the time allotted. You realize your everyday complaints are selfish and materialistic when compared with people who don’t even have what we would think of as the basics. There are always more people to help, with different things they need help with, in many different places. As a student studying occupational and environmental health, I was particularly interested in work-related illnesses among the villagers. In speaking with doctors and nurses working in the remote clinics I heard many stories of farmers who suffered from skin and stomach problems related to the pesticides they used on their crops. Lead mining is also done in the region and is thought to be contributing to incidents of cancer. Asthma was also a major concern in most of the mountain villages, and was said to be worse at higher elevations. These are issues that should be investigated further on future trips.
UML Peru Project Installations as of January, 2004 Location Clinics: Malvas Cochapeti Huayan San Miguel Huamba Molino 50 W-ASE 12. A 20W 2-20 W for radio 20 W, 18 W 3-20W, 18W 20 W 3-20 W 2-20 W 10 W 5W 5W 2-10 W 5W 10 W 10 W 115 Ah 195 Ah 140 Ah 115 Ah 250 Ah 115 Ah 230 Ah 230 Ah 120 Ah 140 Ah LED, 11 W Lumina 18 W Lumina 15 W for charging batteries 20 W for charging batteries 140 Ah laptop PC, 140 Ah laptop PC, printer 140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah
1
PV for lights
Controller
Fluoresc. Exam light Battery
Lanterns, PC 2, PC, printer 2, 2 PCs PC 2, PC 1, PC 1, PC 2, PC
1, PC, printer 2, PC 1, PC 2
100 W-ASE 12. A 40W 10. A 60 W-Sol 12. A
150W-ASE 30. A
170 W-ASE, 30 A Sol 30 A (fridge & Quian 100 W-ASE all share same batteries) Raypa 100 W-ASE 30 A Colcabamba 50 W ASE 15 A 100 W Cochabamba 20 A AstroPower 100 W Chipre 30 A AstroPower 100 W Fortaleza 15 A Evergreen 100 W Pumapucllanan 12 A AstroPower Schools: Malvas School 100 W-ASE 10. A Sta. Malvas School 110 W-Sol Raypa School 200 WStation Siemens Raypa School (shared 12. A C30 30 A
Cochapeti School Sta. Cochapeti School San Miguel
array) 150 W-ASE 40 W C30 A Siemens
(shared array) 30. A
printer for charging batteries laptop PC 2 laptops, printer 11 W fluor. 140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah laptop PC laptop PC laptop PC laptop PC
50 W ASE, 50 W Evergreen 60 W Sol Pilco Huamba Baja 50 W AstroP 50 W AstroP Erajirca 80 W Quian Siemens Town Government:
12 A 10 A 6A 10 A 10 A
Malvas hydro 800 W gen. 60 A, two-40 A Cochapeti hydro San Miguel hydro Quian UV H2O Cochapeti town hall Huayash Clinics: 1400 W Two C40, 48 V gen. 1400 W Two C40, 48V gen. 200 W PV20 A ASE 100 W 50 W, 100 W ASE PV for fridge 12 A C12 Controller Battery 220 V ac inverter 220 V ac inverter
5W
20 W UV 20 W
for charging batteries for town 4-140 Ah lighting town 4-140 Ah lighting 3 – 120 Water Ah purification 60 Ah lighting
2 – 20 W fl 140 Ah
Water 2-140 Ah pumping; sand filter Parabolic Cooker Other Headlamp
Malvas
250 W-ASE 30 A
320 Ah
1
Cochapeti San Miguel
250 W-ASE 30 A 200 W Evergreen 30 A
345 Ah 420 Ah
1
H2O pasteuriz er 1 vap. comp. fridge vap. 1 comp. fridge fridge 2
Huamba Molino Quian Raypa Churches
150 W ASE 30 A
220 Ah
vap. comp. fridge vap. comp. fridge fridge
1 1
200W-ASE 30 A 200 W-ASE 30 A
415 Ah 420 Ah
1 1 Lights 2-20 W fl. lights 2 – 20 W fl 4-20 W fl. Lights 20 W fl. Iight 4 – 20 W fl
1 1
Malvas church 50 W Quian church Malvas school dorm San Miguel church Cochapeti church 50 W 50 W ASE 50 W 50 W Radio Systems Radio
12. A 12. A 12. A 12. A 12 A
140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah 140 Ah
Clinic Huarmey Hospital Malvas Clinic Cochapeti Huayan San Miguel Huamba Quian Raypa Molino Culebras Casma Hospital
Antenna Emergency Hand Radio 13-element Yagi 50 W and vertical 4-element Yagi 5+35 W and vertical RadioShack 5+35 W vertical 13-element Yagi 5+35 W and vertical Kenwood 5 + 35 W vertical Kenwood, 5 + 35 W 13-element Yagi RadioShack 4-element Yagi Kenwood 5 + 35 W and vertical Radio 5 W + 30 W 4-element Yagi Shack 5 + 35 W 13-element Yagi Vertical and 4 50 W element Yagi 13-element Yagi Kenwood and vertical
7 PCs
6 PCs
Colcabamba Cochabamba Chipre Pariacoto
5 + 35 W 5 + 35 W 5 + 35 W 50 W Pumapucllanan 5 + 35 W Fortaleza 5 + 35 W Puerto Huarmey 50 W Icom Chacchan 50 W Icom
4 element Yagi Vertical 4 element Yagi Vertical 4 element Yagi 4 element Yagi Vertical 4 element Yagi
1 PC
Shuttle, U Mass Lowell, magazine, February, 2004. Schools, Clinics and Pure Drinking Water: Making a Difference at 10,000 Feet
Seven months ago, before the group led by UMass Lowell Mechanical Engineering Prof. John Duffy installed its solar-powered pump, the people of the little village of Huayash in coastal Peru were walking their drinking water a half-mile uphill in buckets from the Culebras River. And even after that, until Hector Valdes and his group arrived last month to help them, the water was so contaminated with pathogens they had to boil it before it was safe enough to drink. No more. Now, thanks to the solar-powered pumping system installed under Prof. Duffy's direction last summer, and the water-filtration system Valdes and others completed last month — again, under Duffy's direction — Huayash's villagers have pure water from a common, nearby tank. Valdes, a project manager in the UMass Lowell Office of Economic Development, was one of six University staff and students to accompany Duffy last month on what was his 12th trip to central Peru. On his first trip six years ago, to the nearby village of Malvas, 10,300 feet high in the Andes, 14 solar panels were installed over six days, by a group that included three of Duffy's UMass Lowell graduate engineering students — allowing the nurses in the local health clinic to answer their patients' needs by radio, keep their medicines cold by refrigeration and see by electric light. In the 11 trips since then —funded in part by private donations, in part by public grants— the reach of the radio has been extended to other clinics in other villages; river water has been purified and pumped uphill, solar-powered lights and laptops have been introduced at local schools. And on this last trip, says Valdes, a UMass Lowell nursing student helped deliver a baby in the tiny village of Huamba. Valdes, a 1987 UMass Lowell graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering, never knew Prof. Duffy during his student days here —but then met his son Sean, who told him of Duffy's work in Peru. "So we met, and I introduced myself and told him, 'Anytime you've got some space and need a helper, I'd like to go along.' About six months later he called—he said he could use someone to help translate, as well as an extra hand. I told him to count me in." During his two weeks in Huayash, most of his time was spent helping install and service the village's water filtration system, which relies on passing the pumped river water through a mesh of fine, then coarser, sands. But there were other duties as well — such as the two-hour trip he took by horseback along mountain ridges to the tiny village of Pilco, where he was to help install a laptop at the school ("You're leaning into the mountain, trying not to look down, watching the hooves of the horse in front of you—thinking, 'One slip here, and it's a long way down"). And the time he went to Malves to service the school's solar cell system, then looked around to find 50 or 60 villagers trailing him, roughly half of them hanging off the top and sides of a Nissan pick-up driven by the mayor. "His name was Hugo. He used that truck like a taxi. But the people, they were always like that—curious, always looking around, always asking questions. They'd be asking after people they'd seen [on previous trips]. 'Where is this guy or that guy? Is he ever coming back? Are you coming back?'" If he does go back, says Hector, he'd like it to be as a guide or mentor for the UMass Lowell chapter of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers, to which he serves as advisor. And if space were limited on the next trip, he'd gladly give up his spot to make room for one of them:
"What a great thing that would be for them. They're being trained as engineers — and to be able to use their training like that, getting pure drinking water to people, bringing lights to schools, connecting clinics to the outside world. That's what it's all about, I think."