March 21: Celebrating the end of the project

We are now back in Phnom Penh after completing the last 2 latrines of the Kep project. It was an extremely hot week with the weather staying around 40-45 degrees Celsius.

The families we worked with were wonderful. One of the fathers was in a recent industrial accident and had a damaged hand. But he could still work as hard as us all with one hand. All except Don who was a working machine. Thank you Don.

We had to walk through a Buddhist monastery to reach the two sites. The monks were very accommodating and even invited us to lunch with them on one day. At one site, the neighbours had a wedding. Lots of color, music, food and people. The wedding takes place almost non-stop for two days.

We had a wind up celebration on Thursday with both families together at one site. The entire community came out to celebrate with around 45 people attending. Was a lot of fun and thanks to Vy, Lorene and Janet for keeping things somewhat organized as we handed out juice, pop and cookies. We are all proud of the looks of pride and excitement on the families faces as we drove away.

After the celebration, we went to a school and delivered books to the library and supplies to the school. Then we handed out wooden toy cars to the kindergarten class who wasted no time learning how to do demolition derby with them.

We also drove to the school where the water filtration system was built and took some pictures of the tower. Very impressive and well constructed. You could hear the excitement in the principals voice as he described how the system worked.

A big thank you to all who made the 2014 trip successful and fun. Vy (Princess) for always being available to help. Mr Dy ( our driver), the Anders for making us laugh while we worked, Tom for his advice, Beth (who expanded her world so much), Don for being a working machine, and Wade and Janet for keeping things in check.

Kep Water Project Team
Chamcar Bei, Cambodia: March 2014