This dream team consists of five — Karla, Ashley, Oxwell, Camila, and our translator/guide, Peter. We are implementing Saha’s water treatment center in Galikpegu, a well-established village of roughly 80 households. We began by setting up our water treatment center and teaching Mariama and Lydia — two extremely competent entrepreneurs-to-be — how to begin filtering the dugout water by first adding  aluminum sulfate. Then on Thursday, January 7th, we began distributing safe storage containers (SSC) (before any other team!). That day, we provided 14 households with SSCs and a brief education proper SSCs usage and on the health implications of contaminated water. Our efficiency was largely thanks to our translator, Peter, and the bunch of kids who helped us carry the SSCs!  It was also really awesome to hear Lidia and Mariama’s thoughts about the clean water business.  They were excited to be implementing the Saha’s water filtration process in their village and wished to know what our thoughts were on how best they could make the business successful and sustainable.  Another highlight of the day occurred during distribution when we visited the household of a women who already knew  about Saha Global’s clean water businesses .  In her mother’s village she had seen the safe storage containers before and had drank the filtered water in her mother’s home. There fore she was really excited to know that she could now have her own safe storage container that she could use to provide safe and healthy  drinking  water for her family!

We continued distributing SSCs on Friday, the 8th, after meeting with our business women to continue chlorine training. This time, we disseminated 33 SSCs, each along with a brief explanation of proper usage and of water health, to an extremely receptive and grateful community. A very enjoyable and insightful part of the safe storage container distribution process is listening to  the questions the villagers have about everything. Their concerns such as what should  they do when they want clean drinking water while working on the farm or when can they purchase more safe storage containers from Saha so that all of their family have access to clean water really demonstrated how passionate and strongly they feel about bettering their health and that of family’s members. During distribution,  when we asked the members of the households if they would be using the water treatment center often,  pretty much all of them replied that they would use it all of the time.  They said that they are aware that the dugout water is bad,  but in the past they didn’t have any other option.  We hope to finish distribution on Saturday to allow for a couple of days of fun with the children of Galikpegu before opening day on Tuesday, January 12th. We remain extremely grateful for the opportunity to provide safe potable water and to work with such incredible, beautiful, and humble people.

• Karla, Oxwell, Ashley, Camilla and Peter