Island Water

About a year ago, Bill Andrews asked about our water on the island. I’ve finally gotten some pictures of the system that provides water to our house to go with the description of why we generally have plentiful clean water.

As in most housing decisions, location, location, location. When we were living with host families over a year ago and trying to select a house to move into on our own, one of our biggest considerations was water: both having a year-round supply from the aqueduct and not having water in the house due to leaks or overflowing creeks (a problem we saw in one or two possibilities). The island has several communities served by five or six main systems and a couple of small ones, all gravity fed. Last summer, along with the new sidewalk, money from the canal paid for improvements to three of the aqueduct systems.

The house we picked is located just below the tank for the northern half of our community.

(From our yard up the hill to the tank, the white thing on the hill toward the right)

Our tank is on a hill about a four minute climb from our house, probably 75 to 100 feet in elevation.

(From the top of the tank looking down toward our house, on the right of the field)

A two-inch diameter PVC line runs out of the tank, down the hill, through a chlorine filter (still without chlorine, since the Ministry of Health (SALUD) has not yet come to give a charla on how to use the filter), and then parallels the path (now sidewalk) toward the school. Originally we thought it went all the way to the school (and had to climb the hill to the school, hence the school, and the houses nearby, was occasionally without water), but recently someone told me that with the changes last summer, it now only serves eight occupied houses. (Between that eighth house and the next one towards the school there is a five minute uninhabited stretch, and there is another tank above that next house, which feeds from there to the school.)

All the houses “T” off of the mainline. There is a On/Off on the mainline coming out of the tank, but none beyond that; if anyone wants to do work on their line or add a new one, everyone has to lose water (when we put in our system, we included a switch by the house so we could at least turn off the water if we wanted to work on any of our faucets).

The tank is a cinderblock box with a two-inch diameter PVC pipe input line dropping water in from high on one side, the outflow line feeding out the bottom, and an overflow pipe for when the users are not taking water faster than the input.

(The tank, with ladder, a nice addition from the older version, and the overflow pipe showing that we are getting more than enough water into the tank, right now at least)

The tank is filled by the input line coming down through the woods and fields of our neighbor from a caja de agua (water box) about ten minutes hike from the tank. The caja is merely a small dam across the small creek that eventually goes behind our house. The caja was also cleaned out with last year’s improvements, as sediment had filled in the old “lake”.

(The input line typically runs underground, but it does go over one creek, propped and tied with an old extension cord)

(The view of the front of the dam for the caja)

There is a box on the upstream side of the dam that admits water through a screen (I think) at the bottom sides of the box, which then filters through small rocks and out the feeder pipe to the tank. The sides of the box were raised above the level of the dam with last year’s improvements, to decrease the amount of debris getting into the box when heavy rains caused the creek to rise.

(Water enters the box through two screens on the sides then filters through small rocks into the feeder pipe to the tank)

Sometime soon, there should be a junta (work group) to clean the tank: scrubbing the walls on the inside and rinsing it. It will be just the second or third cleaning I know of since we got here. Supposedly they will be starting an aqueduct committee soon to collect a monthly user fee of probably 25cents or so to pay for occasional maintenance and repairs. But mostly the system runs on gravity, without moving parts, and as long as the pressure is sufficient, everyone has water; we’re at the lowest point on the line, and just below the tank, so we’ve only been low once or twice, which is luckier than many of our neighbors and it sounds like many of our fellow PCVs.

So that is how simple our water system is; I can hike from my house to the source in about fifteen minutes. (A couple of months ago, I went all the way up the creeks to see if there was a need for reforestation near the stream – there wasn’t – but those pictures were with the camera when it was stolen.)

PS: There are also pretty little brilliant blue crawdads in the small pond above the dam.

Update on Composting

Our 55-gallon barrel toilet filled up again (see http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2008/05/composting-latrines.html for info on our barrel, and http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2008/05/composting-update.html for the update on our last batch of compost).

You may remember when we did it the last time we were concerned with killing all pathogens dangerous to humans, so we made bocashi (or boccachi, or bocochi, or boccoshi), which is a fast hot compost, with it. We knew from our research that bocashi temperatures could get high enough to kill the pathogens, and we were pretty sure that ours did get that hot. However, last time we did not have a thermometer to test our assumptions....this time we did, and here are the results.

First, here's our list of ingredients:

• 60 gallons of poo & sawdust (we had another 5-gal bucket sitting around waiting)
• 4 sacos of balo leaves (balo is a tree here in Panama that grows amazingly)
• 6 ounces of yeast
• 8 cakes of raspadura (pressed sugar cane), mixed in about four gallons of water
• ~20 feet of tallo de platano (plantain or banana tree trunk), chopped
• 1 gallon of urine, mixed with about three gallons of water (our toilet seperates urine into a tank, and since urine is high in nitrogen it can be a valuable ingredient)
• 2 5-gallon tanques of soil
• 2 5-gallon tanques of finished compost from the last time
• 1 cartucha (plastic grocery bag) of carbon (ash from the school stove)

(A raspadura cake)

We mixed them all together. Many people would worry about the smell and ick-factor but amazingly there is almost no smell and ickyness to deal with, got to just trust me on that...April too was ready to wrinkle her nose and was plesantly suprised both times. In fact, the ickyest thing to go into the pile was some balo leaves that we had left soaking in water...those, ironically enough, smelled like stinky poo.

(We managed to time it just right so that the entire mixing process took place without shade)

(Therefore, April had to take this picture after I mixed the pile; she then gave me a glass of water)

Then we put the pile in our compost box, stuck in the compost thermometer my folks brought down for us, and watched the temperature rise. We talked about what our hopes were for peak temperatures...and we both independantly had been hoping to hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit and maintain it for at least 2-3 days including one re-mixing.

(The mix and the thermometer, beginning to heat up.)

It is important to have the temperature rise to kill weed seeds in the mix, as well as any pathogens. April did some research and got the following time/temperature combinations from the Humanure Handbook (http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html) indicating what is needed to kill pathogens that cause concern for human health.

(We made this chart to facilitate envisioning the numbers from the following paragraph)

(See Chapter 7, page 144:
Complete pathogen destruction is guaranteed by arriving at a temperature of 62°C (143.6°F) for one hour, 50°C (122°F) for one day, 46°C (114.8°F) for one week or 43°C (109.4°F) for one month. It appears that no excreted pathogen can survive a temperature of 65°C (149°F) for more than a few minutes. A compost pile containing entrapped oxygen may rapidly rise to a temperature of 55°C (131°F) or above, or will maintain a temperature hot enough for a long enough period of time to destroy human pathogens beyond a detectable level (see Figure 7.6).)

So how did our pile do heating up? Here is a chart of the temperatures we found by poking around in the middle of the pile and the corners/edges, looking for high and low readings.


If you'd rather just see the numbers graphically, here is our high and low readings from the center of the pile, compared to the temperatures necessary to kill the bad stuff and how long they need to be maintained.

(You can see that our high (red) and low (grey) have exceeded in temperature and time even that needed to kill everything in one minute (single orange dot at 6:30am, just 18 hours after we started). Depending on your browser, you may be able to click on the chart to see it bigger.)

(The thermometer reading at a hot spot)

Needless to say, we have been thrilled at our sucess with getting the bocachi to heat up sufficiently. Look for a post soon on the beautiful soil that was produced by our first batch of bocashi and what we're growing in it.

House Update

We have now been living in our island community for a year, and in our own house for 9 months. We are finally getting close to having the house "done".

If you don´t remember what it looked like before you can see some older pictures of the early kitchen, fully outdoors, at our post from January on cooking: http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-and-how-do-we-cook.html, and some pictures from when we first moved in at http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2007/11/some-house-udpates.html or even before we moved in, http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2007/10/our-housethe-first-step-of-many.html

For those of you who don't remember (it was a very long time ago), the house was just two rooms with doors that opened onto a BIG porch of about 28' x 30'. Well, we used one of those rooms for storage/toilet room, and the other one for a bedroom. This left our kitchen and main living areas out in full public view. My neighbors are great people...but I was getting tired of being in full view 95% of my awake time in my own home. People could walk by and see us anytime.

So we added bamboo walls to divide the space, provide a bit of privacy, provide an indication to neighbors of what was outside and what was our space, and provide a way to open our bedroom door without being right next to the path and fully outside. We also did not want to make permanent changes to the community's building, and these should be fairly easy to remove.

We cut the first batch of bamboo, about 60 twelve-foot pieces and a few longer, at January's full moon (supposedly the bamboo does better with insects / lasts longer if cut at full moon, but frankly, there is a lot of powder coming out of the slats on a daily basis) and a second batch of 10 pieces in April.

A view from the outside looking at hammock area. We have 4 hammocks hanging...so we can welcome guests easily.As you can see below, the walls are only about 5 feet high...high enough to be taller than most people in the nieghborhood when you add in the step down off the cement pad. You can still peak through some spots, but those areas that look into private areas were built with closer or overlapping bamboo.

Kevin made the three walls for the four-foot square shower first and we put those up. Then he made a 13 and a 14 foot section for dividing the house, a 7 foot section to angle off the "bathroom" area, and a ten foot section to go from the wall by our door to the first post. We put all those up and were missing just the wall by the kitchen, on the back side, but we were loath to lose the light and the ability to toss stuff out. So we finally built a half wall with a two foot stretch that is full height, for blocking wind from the stove.

In the photo above the shower is just behind the curtain and the kitchen is to the right. The sink is multi-purpose: dishes, teeth brushing, clothes washing. Anything too yucky for the normal sink is done on the outside faucet in the lower left corner of the house. The big silver can on the counter is a water filter. We do fine healthwise without it, but water without floaty bits just is more fun to drink.

I have also made things more interesting by hanging 4 hummingbird feeders up with great success. (Thanks for the feeders Mom!) Most moments I can look out and see between 1-9 hummers hanging out nearby the house. If you were to add in the major hummingbird flight paths (red lines) into the house diagram you get something like this: (no joke...they really do fly right through all the time!)

The only path missing is the occasional circular loop into the bedroom and back out.

We also have started gardens to grow vegetables. Growing food here is easy and hard at the same time. Easy with temperature, sun and water (except sweet corn, which apparently needs longer daylight hours; OH we miss sweet corn!). Hard with too much water, and plenty of pests and fungus and other plant problems to deal with. In addition to the beetles that most USA gardeners are used to battling, here we get to fight leaf cutter ants for our food....great fun to watch them when the leaves that they are carrying are not from your garden. Our garden is protected from scratching chickens, munching horses, horsing around dogs, and running kids by a "fence" made from a retired fishing net. The garden looks tiny and sad so far, but all that can change in just weeks around here.

This is an experiment to grow tomatoes next to the house under the eave where they are protected from too much rain. The rain increases fungal and mold problems in tomatoes. We will see...and so will all of our nieghbors who are watching our strange ways with great interest.

So that is our home-sweet-home. I am still looking forward to coming back to the style of houses that I am used to in the USA, but for now we are very happy and reasonably comfortable.

Composting update....

So, it has now been about two weeks since we made the compost "bocachi" with the contents of our compost toilet. The response to the last post on this subject has been very interesting...and at times revealing.

I am happy to report that the compost heated up very nicely for a few days. It also lost about 8 inches in height in the box...a really visible decrease in volume. After that (this is only about 5 days after making the pile) it cooled down to where you could not feel heat above the tubes anymore, just in the pile itself.

(Kevin next to the settled pile after one week; it started as high as the screening)

We decided to mix the pile to kickstart it again and ensure complete composting. Mixing, or turning the compost serves to mix the un-composted materials into the center, stir more space and oxygen into the materials, and promote microoganism growth. We turned the compost just by opening the box, shoveling it all out, shoveling it a bit to mix it, and shoveling it all back in. While it never did regain the high heat of the first few days it did heat up nicely and is warm to the touch just an inch or so below the surface.

(Kevin turning the compost before putting it back in the bin.)

When we turned it we found that the whole contents of the pile had become fairly uniform in color and texture. There were still bits of banana tree and leaves that were identifiable, but on the whole it was well on the way to looking and smelling just like good black soil. We were very happy with the results so far just based on 7 days time. We could almost taste big tomatoes.

(The humanuare compost after just 5 days of composting time...looking good!)

We also co-taught a class about making a compost pile with MIDA (the national agricultural ministry) on Friday and used a sample from our pile to show what was possible in 2 weeks time. During the class we worked with the students to make a sample pile that will then be used in the school garden when we get it started (waiting on the rain to arrive as the school does not reliably have water). The class went well and much fun was had by the students (all adults). We also gave away compost tea (a liquid form of compost fertilizer) as prizes for people who correctly answered questions about compost at the end of class.

(April (on the left) and the community watching the hands-on portion of compost pile creation)

(The men working on spreading bala leaves in the first level of the pile)

(The women working on spreading bala leaves in a later level of the pile)

However, while we told the community that we made our pile with manure, we didn't mention that it was humanure. We aren't sure they're all ready for that, and we don't want them to think we are so far out there that they decide to dismiss all of our ideas as too far-fetched to try.

Composting Latrines

It isn’t gross, so keep reading.

Our house was just a storage room and office before we moved in, without a spot to go to the bathroom, a deficiency we had to remedy before moving in. It is just a few feet above high tide level so we figured a normal latrine (with a nine-foot deep hole) would likely hit water quickly, and since we’re only going to be there for a short time, we didn’t want to make any huge permanent changes. So we did some research, talked to some Environmental Health sector volunteers, read some of a book titled The Humanure Handbook, and decided to go with a composting toilet.

Now please know that the system that we are about to describe is tailored to our needs and does not follow exactly any of the systems that Peace Corps or The Humanure Handbook recommend. However, we did keep a healthy respect for all of the sanitary and pathogen related issues involved. We carefully used the concepts taught by those respected sources to try to make a system that was going to be safe, sanitary, and yield pathogen-free results while fitting the needs of our housing site.

First, what is compost? Compost is the process of using the soil’s normal microorganisms to eat organic materials (plant based products like leaves, coffee grounds, grass, paper, sticks, vegetable waste, manures, etc.) and turn them into rich healthy soil. Normally composting is done by putting together a pile of organic matter so that the pile has the right conditions to encourage those microorganisms to be happy, multiply rapidly, and thus to eat more organic materials. When the conditions are right the microorganisms actually produce heat from all of their liveliness and this heat can kill weed seeds and pathogens in the compost pile.

Why use human waste in a compost pile? Well, any gardener or farmer can tell you that manure is good for plants and the health of the soil. If you look at the main nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus, and sodium or NPK) values contained in various types of manure, horse and cow are good but chicken poo has very high values. Well, human manure has values comparable to a chicken in sodium and phosphorus. Nitrogen is higher in chicken poo…but that is found in human urine. So all told our waste has real potential for being a valuable source of fertilizer. Also, humanure is abundant (each adult produces roughly ½ lb. a day) and easily available. It does need to be treated to kill any pathogens that could spread illnesses before use…but cow and horse manure should also be composted to kill weed seeds that are capable of growing after a trip through the animal.

So what did we do? We purchased a 55-gallon barrel with removable lid (very similar to our old grease collection barrels from our greasecar system back in Maryland, if you ever saw those), cut a hole, attached a seat,

ran a funnel and tube to separate the urine (as recommended in a large collection system like ours, whereas smaller 5-gallon systems like in The Humanure Handbook do not separate), got a few sacks of sawdust (both fine, from a woodshop, and large, from a chainsaw),

and went about our business. The idea is that after every deposit you cover the poo with dry organic material to balance moisture and to prevent insect interest. The organic cover material also prevents odors. I know it is hard to believe, but you could stand next to our tank and either smell nothing or a slight smell of damp sawdust on humid days. We had very few problems with odors or insects…much less than the typical pit latrine (and we now have plenty of pit latrine experience for comparing).


After a couple of months, we started asking at the store where we’d bought the barrel about getting a second, with the idea that when the first filled, we’d swap the lid/seat, cap the full one and let it sit for six months or so in the sun to compost and kill all the bad stuff.

But even after trying all over town for 3 months, we had no luck tracking down a second barrel with a lid like the first to fit our system. We finally decided we need another solution, so we did some more research, read some more in The Humanure Handbook about what it takes to make it safe, and decided to use our tank’s contents in a bocachi compost pile. Bocachi is actually a Japanese term for a fast compost process (typically resulting in usable compost in 3-4 weeks vs the 12-20 weeks of a normal compost pile) that generates some high heat almost immediately. Amongst the recipes are several that use estericol (manure), typically from cow, horse, or chicken, but we figured (based on nutrient levels) we could use ours too.

So we set about collecting the other ingredients (measuring in gallons because 5-gallon buckets are used for everything here and thus form a basic measurement unit in the field):
· already had the sawdust and estericol mixed together (we estimate a mix of 1/3 poo and 2/3 sawdust in our tank), about 40-45 gallons;
· banana tree (chopped), about 10 gallons;
· dirt (for the microorganisms), about 5-8 gallons;
· ash and charcoal (slightly larger, not fully burned to ash), about 5-10 gallons;
· yeast (to actively grow), about three-quarters of a pound;
· a molasses-type mixture made from raspadura, which is sugar-cane pucks, about 5 gallons;
· and balo leaves, balo being a tree that is commonly used for fences here in Panama because when a branch is cut off, it can be stuck an inch in the ground and it will grow. Balo is also a plant that is known for having insect repellent properties and it fixes nitrogen and its leaves are very high in nitrogen which is good for compost piles (the sacks of leaves we collected were very warm to the touch within a day). My guesstimate for collection of enough balo was that I could do it in one morning; it took two days, with April helping the second day. We collected an estimated 120 lbs. of balo leaves.

We also collected, with permission of the owner, some left-over side boards from when folks cut down teak trees and chainsawed them into boards. We used these, along with screen material, nails and wire, to build a “box” for our pile, which according to the “special fast bocachi” directions, needed to be 8-inches off the ground to get proper air circulation for heating up. Air circulation is important because the microorganisms we wish to encourage are aerobic…they use oxygen. There are also anaerobic (without oxygen) microorganisms that compost, you can tell the difference between the two because anaerobic microorganisms release an ammonia smell. Aerobic (oxygen users) microorganisms are preferred…thus most compost is turned occasionally to admit oxygen and stored in ways that allows airflow.

To further ensure proper circulation throughout the pile (which is to be 3-feet square and 4-feet tall), April drilled holes in 1” PVC tubing we had left over from construction and we placed these in the middle as we filled the box.

Finally we had everything ready and “rolled out the barrel” to begin the mixing process. We shoveled out the sawdust/poo mixture.

As you can see, it just looked like sawdust and there was no smell beyond a faint earthy sawdust-y odor. Other than the top (most recent) layer, everything we encountered was sawdust or dried hard (think a cow patty on the Great Plains). (For the most part, we did like most places with flush toilets here in Panama and bagged then burned our TP; there was a week or two when we put the TP in the tank, but we never found that layer when emptying the tank. It had totally composted and disappeared; it looked like nothing other than sawdust.)

As I shoveled in the sawdust and carefully broke up the few lumps, April added the other ingredients.

We shoveled, stirred, and added some water to get the proper consistency (the directions said to grab a handful and see if it clumped right, but I think they were working with other types of estericol. We gauged by eye, based on lots of past composting experience not clump.) It was a large pile. Too large, we wondered?

Then we began to shovel into the box, with April holding the PVC tubes upright. It fit perfectly.

The next morning, April put her hand over the top of the tubes, to see if it was heating up like promised. A definite hot breeze of air was coming out of the tubes.

They say it will be ready in about three weeks, but we’ll give it a bit longer just to be safe. Research on common human pathogens indicates that we need about a 14 days (week then turn and a week more) at our compost pile’s normal temperature to kill the bad stuff. If you have doubts about this please refer to chapter 7 of the Humanure Handbook available at: http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/downloads/PDF_all%20chapters/Chapter_7.pdf
After it is done we plan to dig a garden bed, pour it in, cover with a thick layer of dirt, plant some seeds, and a while later, hopefully enjoy the best, biggest, tomatoes ever. Other volunteers who have done composting toilets report that tomatoes love the finished compost and we love tomatoes.

If you are interested in knowing more about using human waste in compost please check out the Humanuare Handbook by Joseph Jenkins which is available online for free at: http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html yes, you can buy one...but scroll down and you find editions available for download for free. Great book...I think you can look forward to composting toilets at the Cropper house in the States in future years. (I hope that won´t keep you from visiting!)

Last night's noisy visitor

There was a gnawing sound coming from the end of our porch last night.

We took the flashlights and cautiously approached.

We listened.

We finally heard the sound, coming from between us.

In the pile of split bamboo, waiting to become a wall.

Carefully, I pulled pieces of the pile away, wondering if I would reveal the world's largest scorpion or some other creepy-crawly.

Finally, it appeared!

(blue-orange crab in bamboo slats on our porch)

Later, we heard a noise in the back room, a scratching on the plastic 5 gallon barrels we store drygoods in. And sure enough, he'd made his way in there. I chased him out and off the porch, hoping he'll dig a hole away from the house (and hoping our neighbors don't catch him too quickly).

It is odd, the crabs really went away during the summer/dry season (January thru March), but the rain restarted this week, and it seems almost immediately, they've returned. We've found smaller ones walking around the floor and up on the shower walls. I'm not sure why they are so attuned to the rains, but ones like this at least are a colorful addition when the days go grayer, even if they can be a scary addition in the darker nights.

Some house udpates!

We are officially in our house now, with a week under our belts of fighting back the termites, scorpions, and water leaks, and defining for folks that it is now our house, not the neighborhood public porch for everyone to wander in and sit down (or inspect all of our stuff!). As April said, we have two rooms and a large porch. Here is what it looks like from the field (since the last pictures were taken, there was a junta, or communal work effort, and the grass was cut by a bunch of guys with machetes):

Here is all of our stuff, out in the porch, while we were cleaning and spraying the rooms.

Compare this huge pile of how much we have now with the picture from when we came down here (http://ak-panama.blogspot.com/2007/05/training-week-one.html) with just the blue suitcase, blue backpack, grey suitcase, red backpack, and yellow backpack, most of which are actually visible in this image.

We have two neighbors within shouting distance. This is taken from where April was standing in the first picture and you can just barely see part of the closest house in the trees straight back.

We have a path to the water, but not quite a waterfront view. It is down this path that the neighbors (and various other folks) walk to their boats, in a cove about 100 meters away. Again, the picture was taken from where April stood in the first photo, so folks do pass rather close to our house, and since this front room is our bedroom, quite close to our windows and bedroom door. It is a bit different dynamic in Panamá than in the states, as we've taken many other paths as close to houses. We hope to build a wall of bamboo or something between the door and the first column, to define our space and give some privacy to our door.

But for now, we are hoping that the termites don´t return (we knocked down those nests, swept a lot, and sprayed), while we are gone for training and Thanksgiving (most of the volunteers here in Panamá gather in a mountain resort for a taste of chill air - they say we need a sweatshirt - and cook a huge Thanksgiving meal together) over the next two weeks. We'll post more about the house and construction projects in the future.