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From the airport: on my way to Guatemala

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

 In about half an hour I will be getting on board an airplane that will take me to Dallas and then Guatemala. I confess that I don't really know how to mentally prepare for such a hands-on and open-ended trip. Let me first describe the intention of this trip rather generally.
The Engineers Without Borders, Davis Chapter (EWB-Davis), Guatemala Team was made aware of the situation at Lake Atitlan by Eliska Rejmankova, a professor specializing in aquatic ecology at UC Davis.

For the past year we have delved into a variety of technologies and pilot projects in an attempt to deal with the extensive greywater that runs off from local homes into the lake. We are attempting to develop a filtration system that will slow the deterioration of the lake ecosystem caused by phosphates and other residential contaminants. With funding through the UC Davis Blum Center's Poverty Alleviation

Through Action undergraduate grants program, and research completed about the situation, a team composed of myself, Terri Harris (a UC Davis graduate with an M in Community Development and a Blum Center Fellow who has been actively involved in practically every current EWB UCD program since her joining this year), and Harold Leverens (a Guatemalan mentor and a researcher at UC Davis in environmental engineering) we will travel to do additional fact finding on the ground, interviewing community members and working with potential local partners.

We have been doing extensive research on possible connections with key contacts over the past six months and have scheduled meetings with a number of individuals in several towns adjacent to the lake. It will be fascinating to to learn directly from them about their interests, motivations, and expectations. Our trip goal is to find a project partner for a potential EWB-Davis project.

Unfortunately they are calling us up to enter the plane now, but I will expand on this in my next post.

 Imaan Taghavi, undergraduate, Civil Engineering, UC Davis

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