Sousday from Siem Reap!!
At 8:15 a.m., i arrived at The Trailblazer Foundation with my rented bicycle. I was warmly welcomed by the staff and one of them, Theresa from the U.S gave me a short explanation on the NGO's work by showing me the site of the filter-in-the-making while explaining the steps taken to build a filter such as gravel and sand washing, sand sieving and molding of filter containers that are made of cement.
I found out that today was delivery day! It meant that all of the volunteers would be going to the village to install the water filters! How fortunate for me to visit the villages and have a taste of installing them filters on my very first day!! I met the rest of the volunteers (5 out of 7 are Aussies, no Malaysians came before me!) there who told me that it was also their first time going to the village despite weeks of volunteering at the NGO. The reason why the staff do not go to the village at a consistent time is mainly due to rainy weather which makes it troublesome for them to install the filters.
After shifting the filters and required materials on the back of the two trucks, off we went to the village about 20mins away. An Aussie volunteer, Marco and I were both crammed into the back seats of a Hilux. Compared to Marco, I wasn't as uncomfortable as he was because of his long legs! One of the advantages of being short! Ha!
First, we went to two houses and unloaded the filters from the truck. The houses are pure kampung style, perhaps even worse as they still use firewood for cooking. the cool part is that each wooden house has at least one hammock underneath the house which is on stilts. Each filter weighs about 80kg!! Thank God we had a trolley to carry all them filters and sand bags!
1. We found an even-ground spot to place the filter.
2. We poured water (drawn from water pumps provided by UNICEF) into the filter.
3. We threw in big gravel, followed by small gravel and a bag of washed sand.
4. The project manager who is Cambodian, gave a briefing to the house owner onthe maintenance of the filter, yes in Khmer language, which words hard to pronounce!
5. The filter os covered with a metal cover to protect it from bacteria.
After about 40minutes of installing two filters, we were taken for lunch by the project managers at a local shop. I still think Chinese food is the best in the world. But Khmer food costs only USD 1 or less. Of course, you find them at the markets/road side, not at the commercialized resto in town.
It rained cats and dogs after our lunch! So, we had to wait for about 25mins before we headed to a few more houses.
On our last house filter installation, halfway while fixing the filter, lo and behold, it rained again! That delayed us for another 20mins before we finally completed our task.
At 4p.m., we finally reached the NGO. Everyone was exhausted due to the task of loading/unloading heavy materials and the constant sweating!!! I sweat like the South East Asia monsoon on my face.
After signing out the volunteer log book, I cycled pass a market and stopped by for some local food. I had one pf the best popiah i've ever tried. There was rice, mint n other vege leaves, dried prawns in the popiah! Dip in their local sweet sour sauce and chilli, they pop in yo mouth!
That's all for today! Will be learning how to prepare the materials for the filter tomorrow onwards!
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