In Bolivia, villagers work leads to clean-water systems

Published: 2006-11-29

LACA LACA, Bolivia (CNS) -- In the dry season the dusty, rocky hill above Laca Laca, a community of about 50 families, looks like a moonscape dotted with tiny cactus plants and scrubby grass. But when village elders insisted that water could be found there, the residents climbed the hill, asked an orphan boy they considered especially protected by God to pray over the site, and went to work with picks and shovels. Two days later, their efforts were rewarded with a trickle of water from the rock about five feet below the surface. The find made Braulio Rojas and Jason Gehrig change their plans for the village's water system. Along with the two wells they had planned, they are now including the spring in the system's design. "The people made us do it because of their faith," Rojas said. Gehrig, a civil engineer working in Bolivia as a Maryknoll lay missioner, and Rojas, who directs a nonprofit organization called Suma Jayna -- "good communal labor" in the local Aymara language -- are devoted to bringing safe water for drinking, cooking and washing to households in remote rural villages.

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