Zulu Seven - Los Tololos community project

Look north – we’re off to Nicaragua! Travel up the spine of Cordillera de Guanacaste ridge and you'll cross into the land of lakes and volcanoes. Skirt round Lago de Nicaragua and through colonial gem Leon, pausing briefly in Jinotepe for a sleep and a shower before pressing onwards into the far northwest. 80 kilometers inland from the Pacific Coast, the final leg of the journey takes you to the village of Los Tololos - a remote community close to Villanueva, and home to our team for the next three weeks. If you’re starting to think that this sound like the middle of nowhere, then you’re on the right track. And a track is about as good as it gets - there are no proper roads to get to these places. People get around on foot or on horseback, and some of the communities are a half day walk to the nearest town or fresh water source.

It’s hot here – not the humid, sticky heat of the jungle, but the dry, dusty, throat-tickling, energy-zapping heat of a crumbling deserty hinterland. We’re talking 35 degrees, even in the shade, SPF factor 50, rehydrate, rehydrate, rehydrate! Water - and we’re talking about the nice, safe, drinkable variety – is a precious commodity…

The Los Tololos community has a couple of wells although many families have to walk large distances to collect water and sometimes there isn’t always enough water for everybody. Some families take water from the streams which are often polluted. But there is light at the end of this rather gloomy tunnel: 6km down the valley, a small group of freshwater springs that were buried by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 could provide a viable source of safe water for this community – and all the team needs to do is dig it out!

The first step in this wonderful community project is for the team to get to grips with their new home. The group will be splitting up into pairs to live with local families – an incredible opportunity to get to know the culture and customs of this curious corner of the globe and make some new friends. It’s going to be fun, unfamiliar, exciting, often magical and full of new challenges.

The majority of the people living in these areas are subsistence farmers growing just enough to feed themselves. Many of the farmers grow sesame seed, and a cooperative, the Cooperativa Juan Francisco Paz Silva has been set up to support workers in the area around Achuapa. Following a visit from the late Anita Roddick, they have an agreement with the Body Shop to supply sesame seed oil for use in the production of cosmetics. The cooperative in turn is dedicated to improving the quality of life of the community. Raleigh has been working with the cooperative to improve the lives of the families who work in this cooperative and to gain an incredible insight into 21st century Nicaragua.

So how exactly are they going to work this modern-day miracle? The ten-week Los Tololos project is a mammoth undertaking, but three project teams will be taking their turns to move things forward. During phase one, Alpha Seven carefully excavated the spring site before building six water purifying tanks close to the source.

Next, the X-ray groups will be piping the water back down the valley and constructing two large holding tanks just outside the village during phase two. Finally, in phase three it’s trench time: the team will get busy digging channels to accommodate a network of pipes all over the village to channel water straight into homes. It’s a mammoth task, but knowing that in ten weeks we’ll be turning on the taps to provide safe, clean, drinking water for 500 people for the first time is very big carrot to dangle.

Luckily, there are a few perks of the job too: the team will be taking time out from digging to check out the sesame seed co-operative, teach English at the local school and sleep under the stars as they head up nearby Cerro Juan Sapo for an overnight bivvy.