Water and the rural poor in Latin America: The case of Tlamacazapa, Guerrero, Mexico

Abstract

The future of hydrogeology requires a move beyond a narrow technical paradigm and necessitates asking questions related to “people” and “process” within an integrated and cohesive water framework. This essay discusses water in relation to poor people, employing a focus on Tlamacazapa as exemplifying on a micro scale many problems that occur on a macro scale in Latin America and globally. The first author has personally worked in Tlamacazapa regularly for seven years and knows that context and its people well. Tlamacazapa is a notably complicated setting in which organizations called Caminamos Juntos (CJ) [literal translation: we are walking together] and its partners in collaboration with a small number of village women are making slow, often painful, advances. To discuss “water and poverty” is to focus primarily on people. This essay describes a process unfolding in the midst of complicated dynamics and power struggles, often about water. A view of water that concentrates on its “technical” aspects (with an occasional nod to people as is common in technical assessments and programs) will seriously underestimate the complexity of any work towards the long-term improvement of water use, access, quality, policy and systems. Those readers working from a quantitative, empirical mindset might prefer inclusion of more facts and figures in this essay, in particular those showing the effectiveness and impact of CJ programs. If such data existed, it certainly would have been included; no one has reliable numbers for Tlamacazapa. As long as the main characteristics of a community are disorganization, distrust and violence, it is nearly impossible to get meaningful statistics. One must first focus long and hard on the inter-related processes that build trust, self-esteem and capacity. This is admittedly and clearly a work in progress. A small group of outside individuals (of international and Mexican origin) is committed to working closely with local villagers, largely women, over the long term. These individuals take the same risks that villagers live with everyday, and deal with the established negative behavior patterns (bandit assaults; contracts to cause harm; threats both verbal and implied; and unwarranted insults, nasty gossip, lies and manipulation). “Outsiders” can work with “insiders” to generate a hopeful energy, while asking simultaneously important questions about the synergistic negative effects of toxins, malnutrition, beliefs of the “evil eye” and isolation on the health and creativity of local people over time. There is no breakdown or step-by-step recipe for this type of iterative, evolving humanistic work that combines serious inquiry with determined action and loving compassion. Certain principles guide attitudes, decisions and actions; these principles are briefly highlighted. Worldwide, about two billion people struggle daily for access to clean and sufficient water and adequate sanitation facilities, while those in wealthier and healthier countries take good water and sanitation largely for granted. Our sobering reality is that about 6,000 children die everyday from diseases associated with unclean drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene (UNESCO/ UN 2003). The families of these children are generally poor, trapped in downward-spiraling cycles of poverty, illness and powerlessness. These deaths are largely preventable through the implementation of acceptable water and hygiene-related measures. “Inadequate access to water forms a central part of people’s poverty, affecting their basic needs, health, food security and basic livelihoods. Improving the access of poor people to water has the potential to make a major contribution towards poverty eradication.” (UNESCO World Water Development Report 2003, p. 6) Water is a universal treasure. Access to sufficient clean water and adequate sanitation has been internationally recognized as a basic human right, and is a prerequisite to the achievement of a minimum standard of health and to productive work. Latin America depends heavily on groundwater to satisfy its ever-growing water needs. Although there is little published data regarding Latin America, groundwater provides drinking water to about 75 million inhabitants of Mexico (Marin 2002). Conventional approaches to water programming in communities tend to be based on overly simplistic understandings of community context and relationships. These approaches most frequently underestimate the effects of existing power dynamics and the common reality of water as hard work, costly or conflict ridden. All too often, “poverty” is understood solely in the economic terms of a person’s monetary income. This essay considers water within the dialectic interplay of oppression and poverty, a situation common throughout Latin America, using an example of rural Mexico. The villagers of Tlamacazapa live in poverty, both economic and spiritual, and within oppression, both internal and external. They have lacked sufficient water for generations. Outlining their context exemplifies the complexity of water and sanitation while acknowledging the realities and risks of working for its betterment.