Latest News from Guatemala

We are very fortunate to have a new and vigorous young volunteer from Chile. Nicolás Zanetta Colombo, is a geographer from the Centro del Desierto de Aatacama of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He traveled to Guatemala to work at the FogQuest village fog-water collection project in Tojquia in early September.

His main tasks were to interact with the people of the village through group meetings and personal discussions in order to establish their views on the status of the water project and also to assist with some needed repairs to seven of the large fog collectors. The 35 LFCs have now been providing water for 10 years since their construction in 2006 and some of the mesh required replacement or repair. The LFCs produce an average of about 7000 L of fog water a day during the dry season when there is no rain. This water is provided directly to individual homes and farms.

The families remain very grateful to FogQuest for the project and one of the major benefits is the time saved by the families by not having to walk big distances looking for water in the dry season. There is a general motivation within the community to organize in order to maximize the benefits. After the meetings with Nicolás a water committee was organized and endorsed by the families in the village.

Their ideas on how to advance will be reported back to FogQuest and we will continue to work with them in the year to come. There are many social and technical tasks still to undertake but the village needs and the benefits of the water are both very real.