Materials to build the retaining walls for the water project must be arduously hauled up the steep hill.

The Amazon River waterway is one of the greatest sources of fresh water in the world. Most of the headwaters arise in Peru on the eastern slopes of the Andean mountain range, bountifully irrigating the eastern plains and jungles of South America, but leaving the western slopes with little water. The Pacific coast of Peru is parched desert except for a few rivers that flow westward down the steep Andean slopes.

One of these rivers is the Rimac; another much smaller river is the Chillon. Between them, the Peruvian capital city of Lima, with a population of about 8 million people, receives about 80 percent of its water. The other 20 percent is pumped up into water towers from an artesian basin that lies underneath the city.

To ensure a constant water supply to Lima, Peruvian governments have undertaken massive engineering feats over the years to capture the water that would otherwise flow to the Amazon Basin.

Marcapomacocha is a lake whose size was tripled in the early 1990s to ensure water for all Lima residents. It provided a great boost to the water supply, but not all benefit. It is estimated that almost 1 million people in Lima lack an adequate water supply.

An Ambitious Project
In our Lima parish of Our Lord of Peace, getting water to the poorest families is a difficult job. Water is still sold from trucks that circulate usually between 4:30 and 6 a.m. Cylinders, barrels and a varied assortment of tanks are filled, and the people live off this supply for the rest of the day.

In one district of the parish, where we have a small chapel called the Chapel of the Holy Cross, an effort was made to connect 25 humble homes to the city supply. The main difficulty was that these cobbled-together homes are built into the slopes of a very steep hill.

We in the parish and the municipal authorities embraced the idea enthusiastically until it was pointed out that the five poorest families at the very top of the hill would not benefit because their houses were built on ground too dangerous for installing the necessary equipment.

The answer was to build retaining walls. Hauling sand and cement up that steep slope is a slow and tortuous job, but that was part of the bargain for those who wanted to connect their homes to the city water supply.

Young and old joined in the work, and our first retaining wall is already built: 10 meters wide and 3 meters high. A donation of 50 bags of cement stored in the chapel is a guarantee of goodwill by the municipal authorities. When those 50 bags of cement are in place for mixing with the sand, there will be many sore backs among the beneficiaries, but true to their nature, they will never complain.

Luckily, nearby large rocks for reinforcement are in plentiful supply, and we buy iron-reinforcing rods as we need them. With all this activity and construction, it would seem as if our objective was to build five new homes, not just five new water systems.

We want water—piped water, water that flows when you open the faucet. We want water that slakes the thirst, cleans, disinfects, sustains life and blesses us with green plants, trees and pure air—water that baptizes us with the love of God.

Columban Father Maurice Foley was ordained in 1958. He has been in Peru since 1978 after serving in Korea.