Can you believe…
That this little girl…

Drinks water from this bucket…

The bucket is stained red from all the iron in the water!

Hello,

I spent the morning with a group called Trailblazer. This is an NGO in Siem Reap that builds and installs water filters in poor villages in the province of Siem Reap. It was wonderful going into the villages and setting up these filters. The kids in the village would come out and surround us and we put in the simple system that would give them clean water.

I continue to be amazed by the people I meet on my travels. The founder of this organization had a furniture store back at home. He started this organization with his wife and has spend the last two years in Siem Reap. He told me that they go back home sometimes to work and make money to support him and his wife living here. The money raised by this organization is used to build and install these simple water cleaning systems.
The water filters that we left in these villages cost $45 US to build. The cleaning system is basically a concrete tube that has different layers of sand. The water flows through the sands and 90% of the iron is removed and the water is cleaned. Something so simple, can reduce sickness of children and adults in the villages. I read that one out of seven children die under the age of five years old, due to health problems that are primarily the result of poor water.

It was a good day. It was a hot day. I continue to be encouraged by people that make different life choices, to help the lives of others. I’m finding many of these people along the way. We often only hear about the bad people in this world. I’m once again encouraged by the many good.

Love Gerry

PS: I have some pictures of this little village girl. This tiny girl was cooking food and doing dishes. I stared at her in wonder as she cooked this stuff over a small outdoor flame. I will put these pictures on flickr in the next day.