Peru Tour Journal: Water Solutions in Cajamarca

On October 1-7, 2024, we were privileged to join a six village site visit to Cajamarca, Peru.  The trip revealed for me (a social anthropologist) and my wife (a social worker, MPH, and community organizer) important dimensions of the effort to provide clean potable water to in-house taps.

The Cajamarca Region: Geography, Culture, and Water Challenges in the Andes

Cajamarca is a lovely colonial city, set in a bowl surrounded by mountains high in the Andes at 3,000 meters (9,000 feet). The region’s rivers flow from the Continental Divide to the Atlantic and the Pacific.  It is known for its cheese and milk; for its lively carnival and parades; for traces of Inca history; and for the nearby Yanacocha gold mine (the world’s second largest, with six open pit mines) which has gradually transformed the physical and social landscape; and as a center of protest movements against extraction of resources (gold, silver, copper).  The landscape is arid during the dry season, but subject to heavy rains in the wet season. Both seasons require attention to water.  The six communities that we visited were perched high in the mountains, 1.5 – 2.5 hours outside of the City of Cajamarca on steep and winding roads.

Photos: Cajamarca, Peru (left); Women weaver seated at inauguration festival in Cruz Pata (right).

Key Take-Aways:

Lesson 1: Collaborative Frameworks

The intricacy of partnering among NGOs (and with communities, municipalities, and national agencies), and aligning models of financing, labor contributions, and on-going network maintenance.

We traveled with four members of Christadelphian Meal-a-Day of the Americas, a major funder and partner to Green Empowerment.  Each of our community visits was facilitated by Green Empowerment’s in-country partners: Energia, Ambiente y Sostenibilidad (EAyS) and Water for People – Peru.  A highlight was the extraordinary dedicated leadership of EAyS Rafael Escobar, son of a judge, trained at university as a sociologist, but accepted in government ministries as a local water engineering expert.  The tour was led by Green Empowerment staff, both from the home office and by in-country program staff.  Noteworthy here was the active presence as translator and knowledgeable background explainer of Green Empowerment Water and Sanitation Technical Lead, Sam Schlesinger, at home in rural Ecuador, and knowledgeable about projects, ecologies, and institutional structures across Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, as well as other projects and their alignments in the Green Empowerment portfolio.        

Each of these four organizations had a valuable part to play in delivering high quality, sustainable projects, and Cajamarca is just one of four regions in one of thirteen countries where Green Empowerment works.

Lesson 2: Transformative Technologies

The power of small but key bits of technology in changing large social patterns and affordances.

The introduction of micro-metering (a water meter at each house), changes the relationship between individual households and the community, both through accountability (how much water each household is actually using) and normative peer pressure (e.g. not to waste water by, for instance, leaving a tap running for animals to drink from at will).

In San Miguel de Matarita, a technical nurse in training, Marylin, told us that the micro-metering has changed the entire attitude towards water usage.  People are now aware of water usage, both their own and that of the community.  Leaving a tap running now will attract admonishments especially from the younger generation.  Peer pressure is one component.  But there is also a change in the rationales for how water is used.  It is important for health and hygiene of the people, but it is also no longer a free resource for animals.  It has become a measurable, and limited, commodity that needs husbanding as much as the animals do. 

The micro-meters are installed outside each house and locked, so they cannot be manipulated, creating trust in the system.  Once a month the supervisor comes to unlock, read it, and submits the usage to the computer accounting system, billing and receipts are printed.  Even if not (yet) connected to the internet, the computer and printer provide transparency of the system.

The third key bit of technology we observed was a wastewater plant, which is an upgrade from one installed thirty years ago with the help of the Peace Corps that had badly decayed. Here a major technical innovation was the local development of a new bacterium for remediation that cut bacteria input costs by half, and now also is being sold outside the community.

In each of these cases, somewhat small pieces of technology had huge effects when deployed in the context of deep community organizing.

Lesson 3Building Capacity

Community organization requires both local leadership and outside support to extend local thresholds for capacity and sustainability.

The “model” that Green Empowerment promotes throughout Latin America is that while it can provide some fun ding and equipment, the local community must contribute and, especially, supply the labor to build and maintain systems, both as a crucial component of “ownership” and commitment (skin in the game); and as a vital non-monetary contribution to the business plan.  One recalls the models of peasant farms which have staying power in adversity relative to capitalist firms, because the component of labor is not monetized.

In Pata Pata, the system operator, Don Antonio, told us of the years of unfulfilled promises by different mayors to bring potable water service, but it never happened. 

The chlorinated water has eliminated the diarrhea and edema that was endemic, and general hygiene improved.  They sent out samples for evaluation and they came back: very high quality. 

The local community leadership involvement and persistence is key to the long term success of the projects.  At the same time, we could see that the Green Empowerment and their partners bring in technical knowledge, models of community organizing, and resources that local leaders need in order to embark on such robust infrastructure projects.  It is “yes and”. Both are needed.

Pata Pata: Communities members wait in line to make their monthly payment for water service (left), gather to greet us and give a presentation on their system (center), show off their yardstands – one tap for each home (right).

Lesson 4:  Messaging

You don’t pay for the water, you pay for the service, the water is free.”  What you pay for is to make the water show up to your house clean every day. 

This also serves as a counter to fears of state or commercial efforts to privatize water by promising infrastructure, but then increasing water rates for profits going outside the community.  Infrastructure and maintenance over time require someone to pay.  If the community wants control, community members need to pay for service.  Their payments are an investment in their community-owned micro-utility creating a circular economy such that the money stays in the community.

In Peru, both local government and national government funding can fluctuate.  So local water committee control over the local circular economy can provide stronger sustainability and buffers against cuts in higher level government funding.

Final Thoughts

Like all such short but intensive site visits, this was a great learning experience.  Above all, the locals who welcomed us so warmly provide a model of persistence in community capacity-building that transcends all obstacles and difficulties, while exposing the collaboration required among all parties to make things happen, in an environment which itself is changing.


Michael MJ Fischer is an anthropologist who has worked in Jamaica, Iran, India, and Singapore, and has taught at Chicago, Harvard, Rice, and MIT.  He is the author of books such as Anthropology as Cultural Critique, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, and Probing Arts and Emergent Forms of Life.

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