By Chris Treter

July, 2006

Traversing the mountainous incline, I keep my eyes forward on the horizon as we careen around curve after curve. I am back in the Mayan Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico – where some of the finest coffee in the world is produced by Tzotzil and Tzeltal farmers on plots of land smaller than 4 acres. Coffee which is reminiscent of a dark chocolate mixed with cool cream - an alarming awakening for your tastebuds each morning or a delicate departure from the day as the sun sets. But, today we are in search of water. Our friends at Maya Vinic – one of our inspirations for starting Higher Grounds – have asked us to help them find water in a community that has very little.

To many throughout the world – over 1.1 billion– water is not taken for granted. Every interaction with water is precious – it is the lifeblood of the human race. There are no showers, or mid-summers’ drink of water from the backyard hose. No morning coffee brewed to perfection. No toilets, no kitchen sink, no front yard sprinklers. To one sixth of the world’s population water represents a daily struggle to survive. Water experts agree that we are entering a world water crisis.

Many in the world must travel by foot long distances to simply find water – most times not drinkable until they carry it home where they boil away the bacteria for nearly ½ hour. Creeks, rivers, puddles, springs – anything where rainwater collects or where the earth provides is used as a source for water for those without.

On countless visits to the Mayan coffee growing communities that make up the cooperatives of Maya Vinic, Yachil, and Mut Vitz we have repeatedly been reluctant witnesses to the struggle for water. In community after community in the Mayan Highlands we have seen illness and disease as young women and children carry water on their backs to provide their family with an essential ingredient to sustain life.

In Chancolom – a community made up of organic coffee farmers from Yachil, the community’s daily chores include hiking up a steep incline to a tiny cave with a very small spring. So important is the spring to the community that forklore and myth dictates that no one married may enter. If they do, the water will disappear. So, as the young and single climb into the cave to collect the water in small buckets, those married wait outside to help carry the water down the mountain.

In Winikton – maize farmers had to travel by foot to a nearby stream to collect their daily lifeline to survival. Today they have fresh spring water running to each home. With help from the Chiapas Water Project, a group of concerned citizens’ of the world lucky enough to live on the shores of Lake Michigan, the community worked with a local NGO to raise funds for the construction of the community-based water project.

In Michigan, the fine folks who make up the Chiapas Water Project - a group in which Higher Grounds Trading Co., is a founding member - recognize it finds its home nestled in a state where the furthest source of freshwater at any point is only 6 miles away and that the Great Lakes that form the boundaries of Michigan hold over 20% of all the world’s freshwater. The group aims to give those without that which we have plenty of – water.

So it is on this journey that I travel with my good friends Christa and Chris from Groebbel Environmental Associates to search for groundwater in the community of Chixilton. Located on a steep mountain overlooking the municipal seat of Chenalho, the community of Chixilton has found creative ways of collecting water. From rain catchment systems to trekking down the mountain to the river far below – the organic coffee farmers of Maya Vinic have spent their lives in search of water.

Jody and I first came across the fine folks of Maya Vinic when working in Human Rights and Economic Analysis in Chiapas in 2001 – 2002. During that time we got to know Las Abejas (the bees) –Tzotzil Mayan campesinos who had come together with the common cause of non-violence in the face of regional oppression by the Mexican military and paramilitary. As a result of their stance, 45 mostly women and children were massacred as they prayed and fasted for peace in their wooden chapel. In the aftermath, the group formed a farmer-owned coffee cooperative to search out a fair price for their premium coffee.

The farmers of Maya Vinic guided us to Chixilton and explained the situation. Reynaldo – a kind soul of about 25 years old and a force behind the commercialization of coffee - who lives in Chixilton explained the situation best. “We have been without water all of our lives, during the rainy season we can catch water from our roofs but the rest of the year we must search for water.”

Following a journey straight up the mountain on a dirt road, the elders of the community took us to where they have dreamt in past years they had seen the flow of water coming from the ground. With anticipation we hiked off with our hand auger over our shoulder in hopes to dig into some ground water.

Cristobal, the responsible for the community and Mayan elder, explained that he was taking us to a site he had visited in his dreams. Water gushed from the ground, he explained, as we walked through a cornfield sprinkled with ancient varieties of maiz and frijol. We cleared the underbrush from the rich, organic topsoil and Cristobal explained that many elders have dreamt of water coming from the ground.

For a half hour we take turns twisting the rustic hand-auger deep into the soil. Cruising through topsoil into a thick clay, we heave our way through the dirt. Meanwhile, Christa and Chris document the soils’ content, our GPS location, and the contours of the land, planning to give the community a full report upon our conclusion.

About 15 feet below the surface we strike a deep cavern! Our hand auger slips to the ground and we smile, hoping we have found an underground reserve of water. The Mayan World is notorious for its karst geology – a landscape formed by the dissolution of limestone. Over 25 percent of the world’s population obtains its’ water from karst aquifers. Carved out of the earths’ underworld by years of erosion as water makes it way beneath the grounds’ surface, the Mayan people have used the caves and caverns formed by karst geology as places of worship through history. In fact, Tzotzil, or “the people of the bats”, were named as such due to the large population of bats that hunker down in the caves that are carved into the mountainous limestone reserves that surround us as we dig.

We pull the hand auger out from the ground and drop a stone to fall beneath the earths’ surface, in hopes of hearing it drop into a pool of water. We hear nothing. We tie a knife to a rope and lower it down, in hopes to reach water – we find nothing. The aquifer has long since dried up leaving a vast cavern below the ground. With time the milpa will fall into the earth, leaving a deep sinkhole.

The rest of the day is spent dotting across the countryside, digging hole after hole. We survey the main drinking hole for the community - a small spring that held a mixture of agriculture run off and fresh spring water. As the only spring for miles around, the community has cherished this site. Placing three Mayan crosses to the side of the spring, the elders have come regularly to pray at its side. The Mayan cross predates the arrival of Christianity and the Spaniards. One can understand why the Mayan worship beside the spring. As water is essential for our livelihood the Mayan cross symbolizes the essence of life and the unity between the male and female within the universe.

Once again our companeros from Maya Vinic pull out their machetes and cut away the underbrush from the earth where Cristobal had pointed out he had a dream that water had flowed from the land. We begin to dig, in hopes that the source of water that supplied the spring was a vast underwater groundwater reserve. The topsoil soon gives way to a moist clay and we smile. We all reach consensus, water is near. The clay soon turns to a bright blue calcium carbonate-based clay, and we become giddy. Water drips from the hand auger as we pull it from the earth. The calcium has been deposited in the layer of earth due to the presence of water. A few more feet, we are told, and we should reach groundwater.

As we trudge on, pulling the blue soil from the earth and passing it between us, we are reminded of the significance of finding clean drinking water. Only 42% of indigenous homes in Chiapas have access to running water compared to 84% nationally. Nearly 70% of indigenous children under the age of 5 in Chiapas are malnourished. The deeper we dig, the more saturated the soil becomes. My heart pounds imaging our auger breaking into a vast pool of underground water. But at 15 feet below the ground we hit a rock. Our spirits dampen and we collect the auger, throw it over our backs and head off to the next site.

But, returning to the site of the Mayan Crosses the next day water has filled the hole about 8 feet. Reynaldo, Cristobal, and the rest of the campesino crew demand we put together the 25 foot auger and lower it into the hole. They want to feel and see the water for themselves. With anticipation, we lower it down. Pulling it out dripping with water, we smile. Mission accomplished but the process will continue long after we leave. The community will meet and determine what to do with the groundwater survey we have prepared and decide if they want to take us up on the offer to construct a hand pump to access fresh clean drinking water.

We hitchhike down the mountain in the back of a beat-up pick up truck -content to have found water but cognizant that the struggle for water will continue throughout the Mayan Highlands and much of the world. The world water crisis will get much worse for many unless the developed world acts as equal partners with those in need. Analyst Blanca Jiminez Cisernos, one of Mexico’s leading environmental scientists, estimates that by the year 2025 over 40% of the world’s population will not have adequate access to water. While the privatization of the world’s water supply is on the march, we must continue to search for sustainable grassroots solutions to provide free and public access to water for those without. Simply put, many lives depend on it.