Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

PERU – On the Peruvian plateau surrounded by the Andes mountains lies the largest navigable lake in the world. At an altitude of 3,810 meters above sea level, the air is thin, and the low temperatures actually hide how hot the sun is. The shore of Lake Titicaca is densely overgrown with inconspicuous tortor reeds. Tortora is an unusual building material used by the Uros people to build the islands they live on and the homes they live in.

Several thousand members of the Uros people live on dozens of islands scattered across the lake. They catch fish in Lake Titicaca to feed themselves and sell their handicrafts to tourists to survive. Despite the simple lifestyle and constant struggle against poverty, the education of their children is extremely important for the inhabitants of these islands.

In the Ccapi Uros community, the local school is the center of island life. The school buildings are located in the shallows, and the classrooms are built on stilts raised above a thick layer of reeds that represent the “soil”. The floating mass of reeds feels like walking on a soft mattress that gently bounces and bends under your feet.

Teachers come from as far as Puno to serve the children of Ccapi Uros. Every morning, everyone boards a small boat, wraps in blankets and prepares for the two-hour journey across the lake. Upon arrival, 95 students, including five-year-old Zaida, line up in the reed-covered school yard, dressed in their bright traditional school uniforms.

The children live on other reed islands near the school. Every morning, Zaida gets into a small boat steered by an older child and goes to school. After gathering in the school yard, Zaida and her schoolmates go to their classrooms for the day’s lessons. While they are in class, several mothers gather outside to prepare a lunch of freshly caught fish and potatoes. The food is good, but the drinking water, unfortunately, is not.

The only source of water for the school is the lake itself. In the shallows, the water is cloudy and full of sediment and other pollutants, including waste from school toilets. In order to find cleaner water, the men take a boat about a quarter of a mile, or farther, to the middle of the lake to fill their buckets. Although this water is better, it still contains dangerous bacteria and other harmful substances, making it unhealthy to drink, putting Zaida, her teachers and colleagues at risk.

As water is abundant, the school children of Ccapi Uros needed to find a way to make that water safe to drink. Fortunately, a partnership between Operation Blessing and Kohler provided the perfect solution. The Kohler Clarity water filter removes more than 99 percent of bacteria and protozoa in water, making it ideal for purifying Lake Titicaca water. Operation Blessing provided a Clarity filter for each classroom. Now no one at school, including Zaida, has to worry about getting sick from the water they drink! Clarity filters will provide daily drinking water for the children of this impoverished island community.