LSU Student's Experience with Global Water Brigades

Lessons From the Field: One Student's Experience in Honduras with Global Water Brigades

“How much water is there on the surface of Earth?” 

The question hangs in the air, unanswered for several seconds until our translator restates it in English. 

There are eleven of us, seated in the compound’s dining room. We’ve gathered to reflect on what we’ve learned while volunteering in a rural Honduras community. Our goal is to create an action plan to address issues identified by the community, and to refine a water distribution plan created for the village by a team of engineering students. To help, we have several Hondurans on our team, including the local engineer who posed the above question, and the translator. 

We’re in Honduras on a volunteer trip organized through Global Water Brigades, one of the several branches of Global Brigades. Global Brigades works to improve living conditions worldwide through a holistic approach that tackles several issues a community might face, including everything from public health to economics to clean water availability. 

Our group is eclectic. I am the sole humanities student whose saving grace has been my conversational aptitude in Spanish. We all, however, hail from the same school in Louisiana, a state whose residents are no strangers to having a complex relationship with water. Louisiana’s swamps provide research possibilities, hunting and fishing, and opportunities to swim and boat. The state also, famously, suffers a hurricane season following each brutal summer, when the ocean turns its fury upon the very coastal communities that financially depend on it. 

The question asked by the engineer is easy enough to answer: 75% - three quarters -- of Earth’s surface is covered in water. It’s a fun fact from elementary school. 

“How much of that water is freshwater?” 

This stumps us. When I think of the thousands upon thousands of lakes, rivers, and ponds of our little planet, they seem infinite in a way I know is impossible. 

The engineer makes us all guess before giving the answer: 2.5%.  

“How much of that water is drinkable?” 

I’m not sure what he means. Naively, I think to myself that all freshwater is drinkable, if you’re willing to suffer the potential digestive consequences from bacteria and pollution. In reading about Earth’s freshwater, I later realized he was asking how much of Earth’s freshwater is available. As it turns out, the majority of freshwater is frozen in glaciers. 

“Less than one percent,” the engineer says gravely. 

Being in Honduras during its hot, dry springtime makes this number much more real. More daunting. Driving to the community in which we volunteer, we pass over bridges spanning dry, cracked riverbeds. In the community, we watch residents drink clean water from plastic bags no bigger than our hands. For bathing and cleaning, they collect groundwater from a series of wells. (Groundwater, globally, makes up about 40% of the Earth’s available freshwater.) They tell us that in the scorching summers, the wells dry up and cannot provide enough water for everyone -- which is why they need ideas, and fast. 

We read over the engineering plans for their water distribution system. The plans are structurally sound, but there’s a major issue: it will cost the community over two million lempiras to build the system. Converted to U.S. dollars, that’s roughly $100,000. 

“Pocket change,” my professor whispers to me, his tone heavy. He’s right -- in America, a clean water distribution system costing less than half the price of an average house would be a no-brainer. Pocket change. But this community, isolated as they are in the mountains, is struggling to raise funds. That’s partially why creating an action plan is so important; by offering temporary solutions, they can make strides towards a better quality of life while working towards something more permanent. 

Coming from a state that often seems like one big swamp, I have seen firsthand the destructive power of water. But, because of our infrastructure, I am also always able to drink my fill from a flowing tap. It is difficult for me to not only conceptualize but internalize just how vital -- and scarce -- freshwater is around the world. How half measures are better than none and how communities will take whatever help they can get if it means seeing their plans realized. Despite the obstacles they face, though, there is a distinct sense of optimism within the community. They are prepared to work as hard as they must to secure reliable, clean water for their families. 

As part of our action plan, we gather a list of nongovernmental and volunteer organizations that the community can reach out to for donations and volunteers. In doing so, it quickly becomes apparent that there are so many people, both inside and outside of the immediate community, who want to help. Our brigade, for example, is able to put the privilege of our education to use, creating realistic, positive changes in this community. The resources to see their water project to fruition are out there -- it’s just a matter of finding the people to allocate accordingly. 

Groups like Global Brigades bring the technology, money, and skill sets necessary for water distribution systems to areas where available freshwater might be scarce or entirely unavailable. They fill in the gaps of access to water, the most basic human right. They identify problems and work in multicultural, international contexts to fight them -- and they are by no means the only organization to do so. 

This is not a losing battle or one whose outcome has already been decided. The residents of water-scarce areas are not only hopeful for a brighter future, but willing to fight for it -- and they’re not alone. In the case of Global Brigades, there’s an entire team of engineers, university students, and donors working to make clean water a given: something everyone gets to take for granted. 

To hear more from Isabel Willems about her experience with Global Water Brigades, tune into Current Conversations.