It's like camping your whole life

We visited a water project in a district about 30 miles from our house. This was one of four villages where the project collected water from the water source and then piped into the village. In the village they had water faucets located as close as possible to groups of houses.

In this Village there were 20 houses and about 100 people. The Water Source was a mile away up a hill and required about a 1 hour round-trip walk. We put in four faucets to service the 20 houses.

This is Ermalinda Santos. She said that now that she doesn't have to make several trips for water each day she has had time to plant a garden. The water system has enough capacity that it not only provides drinking water but some water for irrigation.

These are coffee beans. Not enough here is produce to sell to others. In some parts of the country there are larger coffee Farms and Starbucks is the major customer.

A sanitation project was also part of the Water Project. Latrines were constructed and hand cleaning stations were situated by all of the houses.

This project required the villagers to do all of the labor which consists mainly of trenching and constructing the concrete water tanks. The company who we work through provided all of the technical expertise and provided the materials.

Perhaps the the most significant part of the project is the maintenance program. In the past 80 % of all water projects failed after 3 years do to inadequate maintenance. Now all projects require that the village have a maintenance committee, that villagers are trained, that villagers are assessed periodically so that maintenance funds are available. In addition the government provides periodic consulting to help with the maintenance. Now there is an 80% success rate for water systems.

The Village also recently received electricity. In the village of 20 houses there is now one television set. There are still no refrigerators.

This is what kind of toys you have here as a kid.  Kids also spend time rolling old motorcycle tires with sticks.

This time we had a ceremonial snack instead of a ceremonial dinner. The difference is the snack does not include rice. All these items were grown here. Popcorn, peanuts, corn, bananas, and sweet potato.

The women prepared and served the ceremonial snack but only observed while the men ate. Cheryl was the only woman who ate.

There are some nice things here in Dili. The movie theater is not bad. The movies are all in English with Indonesian subtitles. Monday through Wednesday it cost $3. The other days admission is $6. Popcorn is about $2 and drinks are a dollar fifty.