Day Ten -- Monday, July 11

Monday -- back to work!  Today's assignment was to deliver and install "ball tanks", smaller versions of the rainwater collection tanks that we have been retrofitting for schools.  The ball tanks are meant to hold enough water for one family to make it through the dry season, about 4,000 liters.  The tanks are made in three pieces and must be transported separately and assembled on-site, which is quite a challenge with the vehicles and equipment we have to work with.

Who needs a Ford F-250?  The bottom half of a ball tank on a little Daewoo pickup.

An A-frame and block and tackle to move the top half.

The family and their neighbors with the (almost) finished product.

Shelley and the "Mary Mack" kids.

The site today was in the poorest village I've seen in either of our trips here in Cambodia, or for that matter in any of my trips to other parts of the world.  The poverty was almost overwhelming.  They also have well water containing arsenic at 10 times the levels that are considered safe.  It's good that a team of Christians like the folks at RDI are reaching out with help.  We installed two tanks today for two different families.  All of the children of the village came out to see "the foreigners" and the "new technology".  Shelley played with the kids while the men worked on the tanks.  She taught the girls to do the "Miss Mary Mack" hand slap game.  They were very shy at first and weren't eager to participate, but by the end she had won them all over -- including the boys.

The tank we built last year is looking good!

In between our two trips with the ball tanks, we went back to the school where our team built the tank last year.  It was so great to see that place where we spent five days last year, and it made us miss John, Suzanne, and Doug again.  We arrived during the break between the morning and afternoon sessions, so there were not many kids there.  We did recognize one boy from last year, Nadera.  He saw Luke and immediately said, "Luke!".  How great is it to know that the time he spent playing with the kids is still remembered one year later!  The other rewarding thing was that this tank and the grounds around it were very well maintained.  It tells us that the school values the service we provided and the children they serve.  We were only there for 15 minutes or so, but that little side trip made our day!

The trip home from the second ball tank featured a pretty strong rain storm.  As the "elders" in the group, Shelley and I got seats inside the cabs of the trucks.  Chad, Luke, and a couple of our Cambodian helpers were not so lucky... they got drenched.  Oh well... T.I.C.!