Today was the first day on the ground in Huancavelica. We held our first community meeting this morning, and the work it took for that to be successful can only be described as a learning process. We arrived at the location a bit after 9:00am and we had a projector waiting for us. The only problem was that there was no where to project and no power supply. So luckily, Ruben, our organizer, recruited some buddies and they worked on the electrical situation (which can only politely be described as the worst fire hazard I have ever seen) while Susan and I hung some sheets of paper on a brick wall to project the presentation on. The turn out was surprising – 21 adults, 12 children, a dog, a cat, and a chicken. Yes, animals attended too. Mercury affects every species, after all. Nick gave a wonderful presentation to the community, and the people asked extremely intelligent questions about the mercury in the community and its effects. We quickly and easily recruited our first 15 homes in the community and, to our surprise, began sampling as soon as the sandwiches and drinks were gone.
I won’t talk about each individual house or family, as that could take days to type and far too many entries to capture in a respectable way. The homes, in general, have a main plaza that ranges in size from an average living room to an entry hallway, with rooms and sometimes even more than one household off the main plaza. Generally, the main plaza has no roof and is fairly exposed to the elements. The rooms range from one small room that serves as a bedroom, kitchen, and living room all in one to separate rooms with different purposes. The homes typically have dirt floors and walls, although some floors have been covered with wood and some walls have been plastered and painted. Children, dogs, chickens, cats, and cuy (which are pretty much guinea pigs) roam together in the house. Meats hang in open areas to be dried. Pretty much everything a family needs happens in the home. There are no closed windows and the doors are often boards or metal in a door-like shape and there’s no heating in the homes.
Our sampling team was pretty efficient in collecting samples. Nick was in charge of the Jerome, then helped Ruben and Javier collect adobe and soil samples. I was responsible for the particulate air filters and Susan collected dust samples. The families asked a lot of questions and offered a lot of information to us that will be helpful in relating concentrations to exposure. We completed eight homes today and would have probably been able to complete two additional homes had it not started to rain.
After the rain started, we headed back to the hotel, bought some bottled water, had a drink or two, set up for tomorrow’s expedition, and had dinner in front of the fireplace in the lobby of the hotel. Tomorrow is Founder’s Day in Huancavelica, so we aren’t having a community meeting but we’re finishing up our sampling in Ascención, then doing some satellite samples.
Today really put my life into perspective. I am eternally grateful for everything I have and will never again in my life complain about any “awful” thing that happens to me. I’m truly blessed, as is every other person in my life. Once you see my pictures, you’ll understand what I mean, but only in part – to truly grasp the reality of Huancavelicans, you have to see it for yourself. These are the most positive, welcoming, friendly people I have ever met in my life and they have next to nothing. Just know that when you lay down in your bed tonight, or crank up your air conditioning, or turn on your television, or get into your car – do not ever take it for granted. Not even for a second.
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