Finishing the proposal

man!

i am so ready to be done with this proposal. it's been a long time!

me, trying to organize my ideas....

my name is Emily and i am a second year student at Wageningen University..... sooooooo close to leaving for my thesis in Ecuador. i study a hybrid specialization between two departments....irrigation and water engineering (IWE) and hydrology and water quality (HWM).....but why?

i came to Wageningen University thinking that I would do the full program with Hydrology and Water Quality, most of my background is in hard science and it looked like the perfect program for me. but by about the 4th period i realized that i wanted more direct social application in my work....i wanted to be in the field and spending less time on theory. i did a Google search and found Rutgerd Boelens and Jaime Hoogesteger had projects going in Ecuador and I just went over to talk to them. they encouraged me to combine my quantitative hydrological knowledge with a thesis in the irrigation department. i discovered that if you are willing to put in the time to coordinate people, departments and your writing, they recognize it and will respect your ideas and choices. if you want it you can do it. here below this is Roel Dijksma from hydrology and water quality and Jaime from IWE. they seem to even like each other....

here's my Bolivian buddy Franz. he lives in Amsterdam and attends courses at both universities, WU and UA.

we just got back from the International land and water management practical in Álora Spain. it was a great trip, driving around in the coutryside interviewing farmers, water users and governmental officials..... definately improves your Espanol.

our research objective was "to understand the difference between formal rights (laws) and active rights(on the ground)" we wanted to contribute to maintaining small scale farming in the Guadalhorce basin by looking into rights as tools and multiple resource use of water. We found that farmers can actually use the laws or pieces of them to protect themselves and that having multiple sources of water, i.e. groundwater, surface water, irrigation system water, rainwater harvesting and springs is also a form of insurance for small scale farming.

here is our group interviewing a farmer at a communally managed well in Al Botijon....Wolf behind the camera (Germany) Allen (Uganda) Franz (Bolivia) Francisco a farmer in Spain, and Me (USA)

ok now back to writing. Hope the next post is from Ecuador....or at least the airport in Eindoven ; )