Sustainability - Tumbes Wheelchairs Project

22 April 2018

The humanitarian work we do has a goal of being sustainable by the local people. This isn't always achievable, but when it is, we are grateful that what we got started will continue after we leave. Sustainability is always among our top goals and is always better than just handing out things.

Sustainable Wheelchair Repair in Tumbes

We held a training course 10 months ago in Tumbes up near the Ecuadorian border. This course was designed to train local technicians in how to maintain and repair broken wheelchairs. During the course, a dozen students successfully restored 10 broken-down wheelchairs to like-new condition (using the repair parts we had also provided). We just hoped that they would be able to keep this going with the future repairs so we wouldn't have to continue to provide an endless stream of new chairs.

You can imagine how pleased we were when the Tumbes region, with no prompting from us, convened a repair workshop on their own last week and fixed a bunch of wheelchairs. They then sent us the photos. A total of 18 broken-down chairs were repaired and put back into circulation to help poor and crippled people in the region.

This week, technicians gathered for the repair workshop in Tumbes.

There are always plenty of beat-up wheelchairs to fix up. During the delivery ceremony last year, some people with broken-down chairs were given new ones in exchange. The old and broken chairs they left were a sorry lot. This past week's workshop helped fix all those old chairs.

Beat up and broken-down chairs which this week's workshop fixed.

The technicians broke into various teams and tore the old chairs down to their frames, removed rust and painted every frame. They installed new parts (such as seats, wheels, brakes, bearings, etc.) to make each chair look and function like new.

Anything that was old, broken, or worn out was repaired or replaced.

These technicians came away from last year's course knowing they could restore just about any kind of broken-down wheelchair.

The technicians used the repair parts and tools we gave them as part of the training.

When the 2-day workshop was completed, they had restored 18 wheelchairs for other people to be able to use - wheelchairs that would otherwise have been thrown out. Average cost to repair these wheelchairs: about $30 each.

You would have a hard time telling that these were not brand new chairs.

When a project like this can run on its own, without our having done anything to push it along, we know something right has happened. The Tumbes people will probably need some new wheelchairs in the future, along with some of the repair parts. However, they have demonstrated their commitment to this work. We can supply them parts (which they would have a hard time buying through local funds), but we don't do what they can now do on their own, which is maintain their own repair program.

Jose Crisanto, from the Tumbes Regional Health Authority, is shown here with the restored chairs. He was the coordinator responsible for pulling this workshop together. A champion of this work in a city like Tumbes is key to a successful program, like this one.

This was one of those successful projects that makes us sit back and feel joy in knowing something we touched turned out well.

Life in Lima

Something you see throughout Lima are the overhead cables - phone, electrical, cable TV, etc. Even the best neighborhoods have these tangles of wires overhead. We really noticed them when we first got here, but with time, we have become desensitized and hardly notice them. Nevertheless, the overhead wires are a real mess wherever you go in this city.

Cables everywhere in Lima, along with black water tanks on the roofs.

Almost every house in Lima has a water tank on their roof. The city water comes into houses and is stored in cisterns beneath the houses, then it is pumped into the tanks on the roofs and gravity provides the water pressure (albeit fairly low pressure). The cisterns beneath and the water tanks above provide the ability to have water on hand when the city water supply is interrupted (which happens occasionally).

Roof-top water tanks - as far as the eye can see in Lima.

Summer has passed and we are now cooling down in autumn. The bougainvillea is in bloom all around us, adding nice color to the neighborhood.

There are bougainvillea all over Lima. This is the neighbor's house across the street.

Lima is a city of contrasts with the very rich and the very poor sometimes living in close proximity. This is a shot of a very expensive high-rise a few miles from our apartment. Each condo in the complex can cost up to $1 million.

High-priced condos in the neighboring suburb of Surco. 

The very poor tend to setup their homes on mountainsides around Lima. I took this shot with my telephoto lens at maximum zoom showing an 'invasion' community of squatters about 5 miles from our apartment. The poor who can't afford anything else will put their shacks on mountainsides that have no roads and no utilities. Getting home involves a long hike up the side of the mountain on dirt trails. These squatter communities are technically within the city limits, but only the poorest of the poor live there.

Invasion community of squatters on the mountain top a few miles from us.

Lima traffic is bumper-to-bumper and it is non-stop. The only time there is a break in traffic is from midnight until 5 a.m. Other than that, it can easily take 2 hours to drive across town 12 miles to the airport.

Lima traffic - thank goodness we don't drive here. We walk or take a taxi everywhere we go. Taxis are cheap in Lima, which is good for us. Otherwise, we would be battling with the crazy drivers in this city of 11 million people.

We have found Peruvians to be friendly people, quick to smile and they love to laugh. We have made several friends here in Lima over the past 15 months, and it is always a joy to do things with them.

Sunday night we went to a family home evening at the home of some church friends (the family of Freddy Esquivel). We had a lesson and played games and enjoyed their company. Peruvians are such good people and so easy to be around.

Freddy Esquivel and his wife and daughters (along with us and the other senior missionaries Sister Toro and her husband Elder Liebel). Peruvians are such friendly people, easy to smile and quick to laugh. It has been a joy working with them.

Connecting with Family

We are blessed to live in an age where we have no problem communicating with our family who live far away. Our kids and grandkids can call us at any time on a host of on-line applications. Although we are not there physically for birthdays, holidays, and other celebrations, we usually get to do video chats during these special times. It makes the separation less painful.

Two of our grandsons turned 8 while we have been here in Peru, and both of them were baptized by our son-in-laws. So that we wouldn't miss out, they got permission from their church leaders to let us video-chat to be part of the event.

Miles Divett was baptized by is dad back in February. We watched the event live on Sandy's IPAD Mini while we were in the jungle city of Iquitos on a humanitarian project trip.

Wesley Spencer was baptized this last weekend by his father. Again, we watched live on the IPAD Mini.

Our daughter Melissa asked if we could give a talk during Wesley's baptism. So we recorded our talk and then transferred the talk over the Internet so Melissa could play it on the television during the baptismal service. Then, since we were connected to watch the event live, we got to see ourselves giving the talks. That was very interesting, but a little strange, also.

Sandy and I shown here giving our pre-recorded baptismal talks. We recorded the talks and sent them through the Internet to be played during the baptismal service. What amazing technology!

This separation from family during our mission has been painful, but we have used technology to connect with our family in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Serving a mission is a sacrifice, but being able to easily connect with family has made everything a little less painful.


And so we return to our humanitarian office tomorrow, ready to again address the myriad of projects we are working feverishly to complete before our mission ends and we return to our home in New Mexico.