Sitting here in a very crazy village. Sitting in the door upstairs, the only cool place around. Listening to some ear damaging tribal music with Khmer rock in the background. What a combination. Next to our house, Rex died(dog) and the guys are preparing him for a good dinner. Can smell already the barbecue meat, yummy.
Took a bath in a very shady river. The whole village are taking a bath and what else???? The dead dog even got a last bath, next to us. A guy came and cleaned his fish, while others downstream are enjoying the water. Just to contribute to giving back to nature, I peed in the water so that the fish got some more salt. Just kidding, was tempted too. Luckily we were upstream from this all but downstream from whatever contribution, upstream!!!!!
Had a wonderful day withe Jarai people and loads of people to help. Poor Samai did not slept a lot as he was busy helping his family in the hospital, the night before and to top it off, he had a bad flu. He worked like a real BOSS. I cleaned very dirty ears from very dirty children. How can yo keep the children clean in so much dust???
Came to realize today about a very touchy subject. I know I am setting myself up now for trouble but Trouble is my middle name. Its now the second village in a row, I visited, where I found a very expensive well with pump, that nobody use. These wells with pump go for around $3000. A bit spendy for something to not been used??? The first one, they say the handle broke. That was 3 years ago!!!!
Now to put things in perspective. This is a tribal village. People do not have money but choose to rather walk to the stream for a bath and to collect drinking water, which is not clean, not by the amount of Anti- Diarrhea tablets I am giving out. On top of that all, they choose to pay $1.25 to fill their reservoirs at there house, with money where they get, where???? Looking at their diet, you can just wonder how these guys survive.
I can only wonder how many of these beautiful wells around are not in use.
To get to my point. Looking at an original old Open Well, I just wondered. There are many pro's and con's for the more expensive wells. Water is cleaner and better. But when it breaks, it stand there like a White Elephant as nobody will fix it as it cost money. On the other hand, the old open well , always have water and rope is always around to get water out for washing etc. ya drinking is a problem but people here drink water from any stream at any given time. I know as I do it as well.
To get to my point. Looking at an original old Open Well, I just wondered. There are many pro's and con's for the more expensive wells. Water is cleaner and better. But when it breaks, it stand there like a White Elephant as nobody will fix it as it cost money. On the other hand, the old open well , always have water and rope is always around to get water out for washing etc. ya drinking is a problem but people here drink water from any stream at any given time. I know as I do it as well.
Bla bla you would say but lots of good money get wasted and its hard to see it on the ground and worse to see the NGO's name above the well but its broken.
Come on guys. Go and tend to your investments. Do not just dump stuff around without follow-up work.
Enought said. Dinner was delicious but I think we had the fish with extra vitamins!!!!! Well that is why you need to pray before you eat.
Love this place
1 comment:
Totally understand your frustration with NGOs throwing around all kinds of money but never staying around long enough to build capacity and train people how to care for the wells or fix them when broken. It's a pet peeve of ours as well. Thanks for all your hard labors!
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