The Water Saga, Part II: Planning and Pestering

When Marcial, the president of the water committee, called me about an alternative to the well I jumped at the opportunity, since the well was becoming so stressful it was invading my dreams.  Then, when he explained his idea, it seemed so much easier than what we had planned.  One of the reasons that water didn’t reach the casa materna’s neighborhood he explained, was because it passed through a whole sector of the town before coming to ours.  If we made some shortcuts in the existing piping system, we could make sure that the water came more directly to both the casa maternal and the health center, while the other sector wouldn’t lose their water access, but just have a different schedule.

My super technical drawing, showing where the new connections would go.

So things were going well, the project was simpler, and the proposal for the funds was almost done, all we needed was the land deeds to the casa maternal and health center so we could be approved to build the pilas and install the new pipes.  The new director of the health center (this was in May, so much time had passed that we had a new one), said she would handle it.  Everything seemed to be working out, until she came back and told me, “Teresita, fijáte que…”  My time in Nicaragua has taught me to dread the phrase “fijese” or “fijáte,” because it is a way of telling someone bad news while not taking any responsibility for it.

It turned out there was a problem with the land deeds; that they were tied up in legal problems and that we would have to hire a lawyer if we wanted to figure it out.  My first reaction was to laugh hysterically, because honestly at that point it is either that or curl up in a fetal position and cry.  My second reaction was to be terribly stubborn.  I am not a very stubborn person in general, but when I put my mind to it, I can do it very well.  So, at my next opportunity I went to our department capital of San Carlos, and talked personally with the director of the health center there, who agreed to help me out.  He made a call, learned that he had to write a letter to asking for permission to even see the land deeds.  After waiting a few hours for the letter, and for his secretary to get ready, I headed out with her to our department’s health ministry headquarters.  There we were told we would have to wait until after lunch.  After lunch, we were told we would have to wait until tomorrow, and so on.

The director said he would handle it, but that didn’t stop me from calling to check in on the progress every few days, or asking my director to bug him about it, or cornering him when he came to a health fair in a nearby community.  I did my best to be a pleasant, but persistent bother, and became a right little terror for that doctor.  Eventually, one day I went to San Carlos’s health center to check in again, about three weeks since my first visit.  I saw the director through the window of his office, where he was having a meeting.  Thinking I would wait until he wasn’t busy, I started to walk away, but was surprised to see him leave the meeting to talk to me.  His face was set, and without even a preliminary good morning, he asked, “you’re here about the land deeds aren’t you?”

Afraid I’d finally pushed him to his limit I replied that yes, sir, doctor director, I was.  He made one final phone call, and three hours later I had the land deeds in my hands.  It was with a feeling of incredulous giddiness that I scanned and saved them, in case they spontaneously combusted; the way things were going, I did not rule that out as a possibility.  It turns out, all the trouble was because people couldn’t figure out which land deed belonged to which location.  Eventually the secretary took it upon herself to read through the documents, and figure it out herself, no lawyer required.

So we had it, the proposal, the budget, the land deeds, everything we needed to send to Peace Corps and USAID, and very soon after submitting it all, Don Marcial and I were approved to go to Managua to defend the project.  After so much trouble, things had to go easier from here on out.  If you’re good at spotting patterns, though, you might guess what happens next.