Solving The Water Problem - The Up's and The Downs

As many of you know I took the year after my college career to explore bringing clean water to towns in the Dominican Republic. So far I am a mere 2 months into this endeavor and I feel overwhelmed and behind on everything.

There is a lot that goes into designing a system, especially one that is trying to keep cost to a minimum. I am aiming for a payback period of around 6 years for our water system. The design of it doesn't seem to be the biggest issue though. No, the biggest problem I have faced is fear itself. The fear of being good enough to do this. I am not actually inventing anything, I am hardly even improving on anything that has been done before. All I am doing is what is naturally right for the good of everyone, providing clean water.

We have yet to provide clean water to anyone yet, except if you count what is being done in Cien Fuegos. I want to do so much there and help them expand but it is difficult to help when we wait for them to see the need to help them. Progress is being made there with the water cages that are starting to be installed throughout the city. What's next requires being there, helping the people.

So the question is how can we move forward and stop feeling so overwhelmed on everything. There is not one simple answer but many small steps that need to be done, like a check list. I have a reworked process to clean the water that requires a much larger storage tank, which means no more roof tanks. That also means we have to find a place for the larger tank, in a place where space is very limited.

I still have yet to find a solution to pay for everything down there, even with a 6 year pay back period raising money will not be easy. We will require a lot of different equipment to just get started. A new well has to be dug and a study on the ground water in the area needs to be complete before we can actually start cleaning the water.

We are taking baby steps to get where we are going but its progress. I hope next time I will be able to share some great news on what is happening there.

Thank you all for your support,
Isaac