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One Week In: Wrapping Up Orientation and Into New Villages

Posted on by communitywatersolutions

Over the past few days, the fellows have been finishing their orientation and are now ready to use their skills to bring clean water to six new villages. The teams practiced household visits on Saturday afternoon, then got to monitor real households in existing CWS villages on Sunday morning.

Team 4 (Matt, Heidi, Megan, and Cameron) acting out a scenario from a household visit with Nester

That afternoon, they practiced for their meeting with the chief and elders to gain permission to implement a CWS water treatment center in their village while continuing to run tests on water samples they collected from villages they had visited. Some of the groups had their chief meetings in their new villages yesterday, while the remaining groups will have their meetings today. All six teams report that their villages already seem enthusiastic about CWS building water treatment centers in their villages.

Teams 2 and 3 leaving the chief’s palace in Wambong (2010 Summer Fellows) on Friday after asking permission to take samples from the dugout
Evan taking a sample of the Wambong dugout

When Tyler, Jenn, Brigid, and Leah arrived in their new village, they saw feces and livestock drinking from one of the most turbid dugouts we’ve seen. Then, an old man came up to the dugout and began drinking water from it! If all goes well, this man and the other people in his village will be drinking clean water in just two weeks.

An old man drinking from the dugout in Kpachila. Photo Credit: Jenn Kao

The teams will begin building the polytank stands today and tomorrow. Some teams have interesting dilemas to work out with their villages before they begin. Team 5 (Sarit, Marwa, Brittni, and Khadija) have to decide where to build their treatment center in a village with two dugouts, a closer one that dries up in the dry season and a farther one that always has water.

The dugout in Team 6’s village (Mark, Kelsey, and Moriah), which they share with Team 1 (Zoe, Kelsey, Alex, and Olivia), floods during the rainy season, so they have to help their villages decide where to place their center and if it might be more beneficial to build two stands and move the center during the rainy season.

The village of Laligu built a second treatment center in the middle of town in March, making it more accessible

We look forward to hearing more from each of our teams as they come back from the field each day, eager to share their experiences with the other fellows. Look for their own takes on the blog in the coming days!

-Ben

The kids loved following the fellows around Wambong