Further adventures in Zapatista land with Jacqueline ‘Nina’ Leshan Dreyfus

Reading about Nina and Omar’s adventures bringing solar powered water distilling systems to the Zapatistas makes me want to learn more about these systems from a technological angle. Here’s another letter from Nina, published by permission.

we are finally getting ready to leave san cristobal and travel a bit just for fun.

i’m really happy about this, and excited to go see the ruins and also to relax by the rio dulce, where several rivers converge and empty into the caribbean.

the community is almost all black, descendants of african enslaved people who have their own hybrid culture in this rich bio region.

we have an exciting trip planned but still we are thinking and planning constantly about the project. it seems that what really would serve people best here is to create a science education center focused on sustainability and science for the people.

we gave ourselves a name: science for the people´(ciencia para el pueblo.)

we are thinking of creating a place where people can come to learn and teach and develop technologies which serve basic human needs.

we realized when one of the zapatista comandates of the junta del buen gobeirno asked us what we do with the extra water left over in the basin after the distillate has been collected, that we are providing a resource which is much more than what is really needed.

the distillate is sterile, and who drinks sterile water?

actually what the comandante asked brings us to an important point.

we have 9 litres of water that has been heated to over 60 degrees centigrade for over 4 hours, which is more than sufficient to kill bacteria!

we were excited about our capacity to provide 1.5 litres of distilled water, but people can use much more.

this helps us recognize that we can return our focus to simplicity and efficiency to serve many more people.

a science education center would bring more people together in a site with the available infrastructure and resources and function as a place where ideas, knowledge and technologies could foment and spread.

i think this is important. what do you think?

love nina…

I wonder about the long term effects of using distilled water as a substantial source of potable water, given its lack of minerals and salts.