August

Once again, apologies for the lack of updates. We are very busy at the moment, working to finish the projects and in our spare time we are trying to see as much of Cambodia as possible before we leave in less than 3 weeks. We spent the last weekend in Siem Reap to see Tonle Sap and went to Phnom Penh the weekend before and saw the Royal Palace and Toul Sleng prison/memorial museum.

Last week we were focusing on the demonstration kit as we are hoping to take it into a village before we leave. It has been a test of our creativity and DIY skills but it is finally looking good. It is finished on the most part, just a few finishing touches. This week will be spent developing the workshop and supporting materials for the actual demonstration. We will also be showing the staff here how to use it and are hoping to take it in a village near one of the stations on Monday morning. It has turned out that our timing couldn’t be better as they are having meetings all next week for the guys who run and coordinate the stations and we’re really excited to show them all what they’ll hopefully be working with in the future.

The sand filter and sedimentation tank on their custom built stools

The microfiltration and UV tube

And from Phnom Penh (where Doug and Sinead ate spider):

Sinead and Hiba

The demonstration kit got off to a slow start as we didn’t anticipate how difficult sourcing the correct materials would be. We have spent this week trying different quantities of various materials to find the combination to give the best results. Today we (finally!!) achieved good results and managed to make dirty water clear, a useful operation for a water filter.

The final results!!

Using hi-tech equipment (our bin) to disperse water over the filter

Now we will move on to demonstrating the microfiltration and UV filtration. This will be a totally different challenge as we have the kit used the station and we need to adapt it to make it easier to understand visually. We already have a few ideas but as we are learning, most of our initial ideas don’t go to plan!

We are still working on the report in the evenings when we have the use of the office computers and it is coming along nicely.

Last night we visited the impressive Battambang Funfair. It consisted of 5 rides, one of which was a rollercoaster than didn’t go above my height but looked older than all of us combined. I think the locals got more amusement from us than we did from the rides but it was fun to try out.

Hiba, Marine, Alex and Doug 

Someone has to mind the bags. From the safety of the ground.

 Sinead

Demonstration Kit and Phnom Sampoev

This week we will be working on the demonstration to take to villages to show them how the water treatment stations work and the different stages that they use. We had a meeting on Friday to present our ideas to the Teuk Saat staff and it was really exciting, if a little daunting! Everything worked out well though and they really seemed to approve of our ideas, even though some of them suggested we make the demonstration (which they now want to be much bigger with 50-20L containers used) actually be able to treat water. We discussed it though and reckoned it would be the same if we could just let them taste water from another station so that they knew they would like the taste before buying – phew!

We’ll be carrying on with the demonstration sand filter today, washing the sand and experimenting with quantities.

Oh and yesterday Sinead and I went to Phnom Sampoev which involved being completely soaked in the rain, a 3 hour cycle ride, being lead up and down a mountain by 4 monks and watching a trail of millions of bats leaving the caves at dusk. All in all, a really good day.

Update at Last!

So the rumours were true. Last Monday we packed up the truck once again and headed to Siem Reap. We travelled with the technical team to a newly built station in Banteay Srei. We were there to observe the installation with the intention of writing up a report on how to install the water treatment equipment.

We spent 2 and a half days setting up the station, taking countless notes, measurements and photographs and asking hundreds of questions. It also became apparent that health and safety is not always a priority in Cambodia which is something we will also address in the report to hopefully improve the standard practices.

As the rest of the team headed back on Thursday we were given the chance to see the famous Angkor Temples. They are truly remarkable structures in beautiful surroundings. All the exhaustion of the last couple of days was forgotten as we climbed up and down temple after temple. We bought 3 day passes and but could have stayed for 3 weeks.

On Sunday afternoon we heading back on the bus to Battambang and I started to sort through the 700 pictures I took in the temples alone.

We have a lot of work to keep us busy for the next 6 and a half weeks but we have started with writing up this technical report and relearning AutoCAD for the drawings.

Here's just a few of the many photos taken in the past week,

So many problems!!

Passing the solar panel up

Outside Ta Keo

Bayon

Finally, something in Cambodia taller than me!!

Sinead

Banteay Meanchey Part 2

Wednesday morning was the education workshop with the community and commune leaders and started off with a very swanky biscuit and water tasting affair. The overall idea we got is that it was very important to get these well respected men ‘on side’ in order for the community to fully accept and support the project.

The session went very well with a talk on health risks from dirty water with a picture flipchart and interactive presentation which was very well received. There was then a tour of the station and the different water treatment steps with full explanations of the processes of each one. This was alongside the role of the jar and kit tests in determining how much alum to add in the beginning and to ensure the water was fully treated at the end respectively. It was really good to see the positive reactions to the treatments we use and the depth to which the processes were explained – they specified that the UV filtration worked because the UV rays damaged the DNA of the viruses present in the water so that they could not make you ill.

 

Oh and they all seemed to like the taste of the water too so a really positive result all round. It’s interesting how the taste can be more important than the quality of the treatment to some villagers. Following on from this we have been asked to create a prototype of the station i.e. the five different steps of the treatment, which can be carried on the cart when a new site is opened, to show villagers who cannot make it to the station for a tour or tasting. We aim to show the stages of settlement/flocculation, sand filtration, microfiltration, UV filtration and clean storage techniques. It’s a really exciting project with links to both education and technology and we’ve been to the market since being back in Battambang to scout out the materials we’ll have available.

We were hoping to get underway with this next week in Battambang but rumour has it we’ll be travelling to Siem Reap to observe the installation technology in a new station tomorrow morning. No plans are final in Cambodia but if you don’t hear from us we’ll probably be there and without internet connection.

And if we’re in Siem Reap we might pop to Angkor Wat on the weekend, it’d be rude not to!

 The sanitation talk with flipchart

 The jar test to determine the optimum amount of flocculant to add (for sedimentation) and to the left the red kit test solution showing no significant bacteria levels are present

Hiba and Sinead

Site Opening

We travelled up North to Banteay Meanchey on Sunday afternoon for the Site Opening on Monday morning.  After a briefing on Sunday evening on the busy events of the next day we got our first insight into how things can not go at all to plan and I think it might take a little adjusting to.

Monday - 

Arriving at the site on Monday morning we found that the station was locked and the key nowhere to be seen, the pipe from the river to the station was broken in two places and the UV filtration box had been home to a cat and his leftover dinners for the last 3 months.

So the morning was taken up by replacing the broken pipes but without addressing the problem – they were only 7 or 8cm under the ground and so hardly very well protected and by cleaning out the station and breaking the lock. In this time we managed to learn about the logistics of the station and how it will benefit the school upon whose grounds it is built by providing free water and serving as a source of income.

Tuesday – 

Cleaned out the sand filter, installed the UV treatment system, set up a jar and an indicator test, labelled the bottles and finally by late afternoon we were starting to see the bottles of clean water piling up ready to be distributed tomorrow.

The afternoon, like Monday Afternoon, was spent recruiting new customers from the surrounding houses and it was really interesting to see their current methods in explaining the water treatment methods and benefits as this is something we will be working on helping them to develop in the coming weeks. It was really inspiring to see the community set-up:  a commune leader overseeing a team of community leaders and school and police board officers overseeing specific areas. No stone is left unturned.

Generally everyone approached by the Teuk Saat team was very excited about the project and the benefits for themselves and the local school. They didn’t take much persuasion but the main concern was to do with taste. The old station used groundwater which has a distinct taste of the dissolved minerals (an area we can look into improving in the education workshop) which is not generally liked. However we were able to reassure them that surface water will be used and activated charcoal is used to remove the taste. We are finding that most people here understand the health risks of drinking untreated water but their methods to treat it at home are not effective. 

Tomorrow the station will be open to the villagers so they can see the treatment in action and hopefully register for safe water!

Hiba, Sinead and Doug

Bamboo Train

Been away for a while so no blogs but went on the bamboo train on Sunday morning. Very touristy but so worth it.

Sinead, Hiba and Doug