The Final Pieces of the Puzzle...

And the pieces are finally beginning to fit together...

This Tuesday, Laith and I took a trip to Chiang Mai to collect what we needed to begin testing. This was only after collecting water samples to bring with us to leave at Regional Medical Sciences Center for arsenic, nitrate, and biological testing. They asked us to bring 5-1.5 Liter plastic water bottles for chemical testing and 1 sterilized glass bottle for the biological testing, which was sterilized at the local hospital. Rose came with us to help us translate for Laith and I. We described the tests that we wanted and left the samples and forms with the Medical Laboratory with a quick wai and a korp-kun-krap.

We took a quick side trip for lunch and then immediately proceeded to the "Chemical Store" where we would buy our elusive standard solutions and glassware. We walked away satisfied with our purchase. Now, we had nearly all of the equipment and supplies that we needed to begin the testing, it was the deionized water that seemed to be really holding us up.

Meanwhile, back in Phrao, Jess continued to follow P.Da and observe the surveying. She also managed to enter all of the completed health surveys into the newly created Access database. The surveys are looking great and we are all optimistic that they will give us the necessary information to move into the next stages of our project, determining the real problem in the community.

All we need now is the deionized water, and Laith was all over it. He first tried to go to the hospital to acquire the missing solution but was only able to find sterile water, which wouldn't work as well as deionized or even distilled water. Next, he tried the pharmacy, but found himself empty-handed. From there he was pointed in the direction of the auto shop where he would only be able to find distilled water. Who would have expected to find distilled water at the auto body shop? Finally, after weeks of planning we were able to begin preparing our water testing kit for work. By the end of the work day on Wednesday we were ready to use our Hach testing kit.

Thursday morning, after our quick daily meeting, Ronn and Jess went to town (Nong Bua) to fetch a bottle of water. And let the testing begin... We anxiously started our testing from the main village well, looking to see what the problems were that plagued the water system. At first glance, it seems that manganese seems to be the biggest problem in the water, but I do not want to make any premature assumptions.

We plan to continue to enter and analyze the surveys and continue to test the water from various village sources, maybe even bringing some of them to Chiang Mai for more testing. As more water is tested and more surveys are entered we will be able to paint a bigger and more accurate picture of the entire situation and get a grasp on possible solutions.

Let The Testing Begin!

First of all, I am extremely excited to announce that we have received the water testing kit that we have long awaited. We were all filled with emotion as we watched the delivery man make his way into the Warm Heart Office carrying the equipment. In addition to the testing kit, we have accomplished a number of other goals this past week. David has created a database where the surveys will be uploaded and analyzed. Jessica and the translator, P. Da, have collected a lot of surveys. We have also finalized ordering a number of standard solutions required for testing.

Tomorrow we are going to begin testing the water supply of Nong Bua. We will perform a biological test and a few chemical tests which are not covered by the water testing kit. Then the samples will be brought to a water testing lab in Chiang Mai. The remaining tests will be conducted later after we have obtained all of the necessary equipment, which will be bought in Chiang Mai.

For this week we have also planned to acquire information about the health status of the people and the healthcare system of Phrao district. We will obtain these details from various public health offices with the district.

Weekend in Pai!

Hello everyone!

It is already Tuesday and there is still no mention of our amazing weekend.
We had a four day weekend due to the Thai holiday so six of us went to this town called Pai in northern Thailand. Pai is a small, touristy area with a lot of cute shops and amazing western food.
A small group of us from Warm Heart arrived in Pai on Wednesday night and got a very reasonable hotel room right along side this little river with a small, rickety bridge.

On Thursday we jumped on a bus and went to a small town called Soppong. In this town there was a coffin cave named Tom Lot. The bunch of us got a tour guide and started into the cave on a bamboo raft with a man standing in the back using a stick to direct us. In the cave all you could see was the light of the lantern flickering on the cave walls. The tour guide took us into the cave and all around these amazing stalagmites in every formation possible. The cave is famous for it's coffins! Three thousand years ago the local people used to hang the dead in the caves in coffins. While walking through the amazing limestone structures, I got to see the debris of these very coffins.

Dinner was excellent! One of our fellow volunteers, Andrea, and I shared a huge garlic and ginger fish! I tried the eye ball which was surprisingly delicious.

Since we can't get enough outdoors we signed up for a white water rafting trip on Friday. Five Americans and our Thai tour guide headed out on a river right near Mae Hong Song. The scenery was spectacular with beautiful white water and jungle for miles. Along our journey we saw King Fischer birds, lizards, colorful snakes, and even monkeys jumping around in the trees! During the 40 km trip we sat under a small waterfall, got a covered in hot spring mud, and jumped of a cliff! The entire trip was amazing and definitely an experience that will never be forgotten.

On Saturday we stuck around town while Laith and Ronn rented some motor bikes and went to some neighboring villages. They had some road experiences and came back covered in mud. We ate burgers at this little burger joint on the main drag. For Americans who haven't eaten western food in weeks we devoured the delicious beef patties and some of the boys even ordered seconds. Later on we went to this free music barbecue. We listened to great music and were able to carve our own meat from this huge slab of pork over an open fire.

We had a very fun weekend! Wish everyone could have been with us!

Divide and Conquer

If we told you that everything was going smoothly and according to plan, we would probably be stretching the truth a bit. As with any major project in a developing country, there have been numerous setbacks. Still, we have managed to make a bit of headway. Our project group, consisting of the the four EWB members and Shannon, a graduate student volunteer from UCSD, have decided to split up and tackle this water problem on several fronts. Currently, Shannon is in bed with food poisoning, but she appears to be getting better. That leaves us with four volunteers to start doing quality-of-life surveys, gathering equipment and collecting information about water resources and equipment.

We made some headway today by splitting up and each doing different tasks. Ronn dealt with acquiring equipment, which entailed driving to town to send a fax, arranging payment for the equipment and working with our lovely translator, Ploi, who helped us communicate with the water company. Laith took the long ride to Chiang Mai to create an inventory and price list of water testing equipment. He also went to obtain some chemicals for water testing that were not available from the other company in Bangkok. Jessica accompanied a translator, P. Da, to Nong Bua to observe some of the surveying and meet the townspeople. David worked on writing a grant and communicating with some experts.
Those of us who remained at the Warm Heart office also helped out some of the other volunteers begin a landscaping project, which basically entailed moving large amounts of soil around. We got pretty sweaty and filthy in the process. By next week, we hope to be right in the middle of water testing with our own equipment, have half of our surveying done, and have samples being processed at the Chiang Mai lab. If all goes well with Laith in Chiang Mai (he's still there), we should have a good equipment and price list also. Wish us luck!

Welcome Rainy Season!

And the good news just keeps on coming...
In the past few days, we have made progress on our project in the ordering and testing kit areas. After visiting all of the villages, and categorizing their specific problems and needs, we were able to set a priority and order to which we will help these villages. The two villages that we have decided to focus our attention is village 6, Nong Bua, which was the original plan (according to our EWB application) and a neighboring village, village 5, which seems to have a very similar situation as Nong Bua. So the next question arises, what is in the water?
At the outset of this project, we had had a problem getting our hands on a water testing kit. But we think that our problems are almost over. We had been in touch with P. (Ms.) Monthana and she has led us to a new opportunity for a water testing kit. We have received a quotation from this company for most of the equipment we need; for some of the testing we will need to run some samples to a government lab in Chiang Mai, only a couple of hours away. We have also purchased about ten glass sample bottles, in hopes that with the bottles, the testing kit, and the government laboratory we will be able to find out what is wrong with the people's water. We are still more concerned about the mineral and chemical content than the biological content, however, we will still test for all possibilities. But what happens after we find out what is wrong with the water?

We treat it, of course, so people can safely drink it. Yesterday, a few of us met with P. (Mr.) Joe, the government mechanic to get a general idea about how much it would cost to rebuild some of the villages' water systems or perform some maintenance. He told us that here, in Thailand, when a problem arises, in almost all of the villages, there is a water council that has been trained and will fix the system. However, none of the villages can afford to replace the parts to the water system including pipes. The whole system can cost well over 400,000 Baht, which is more than 12,000 USD! So, there is some major fundraising to do if we need to replace the whole system, but there is a strong suspicion that we will, at most, need to replace the pipes. P Joe was not able to tell us how much the pipes would cost, but he did say that he was going to get us the catalog that the contractors use for supplies, and that would have the prices we need. He made it seem that the piping would not be too expensive. We are working hard but we only really have about 3 and a half weeks left to get all of the information we need to bring back with us to the States. Four-day weekends are not really helping our time-crunch.

Today marks the official beginning of the Rainy Season on the Buddhist calendar. This means that we have the rest of the weekend off. Traditionally, in Thailand, people bring candles to their local temples that are supposed to last the rest of the rainy season, three months. The story behind the candles go something like this:
Everyday, monks walk from home to home or to street vendors asking for food and blessing the sick and other monk-ly duties. During the rainy season, as the name suggests, it rains a lot and it would be more difficult for them to make their rounds. So, a long time ago, the Buddha told all of the monks to stay inside for the whole three months of the rainy season. These candles, which are decorated and given to the temples, are supposed to bring enough light to the temples for the monks to fulfill their duties, studying, praying, and whatever else they might need to do inside.
It is a very important holiday to the Thai people and we were given the rest of the week off, Thursday and Friday, so we decided to take a trip to a wonderful town named Pai.

Village Mayhem!

These past several work days, we have been traveling to all of the villages in the Mae Wen subdistrict. There are 11 of them in total, and we have been able to visit 10 because the 11th village did not want outside workers entering. During these visits, we have been meeting with all of the village headmen to discuss water resources and distribution. The systems in the villages ranged from central wells with filtration, aeration and distribution systems to a complete lack of water distribution. In the villages with no water systems, each family has had private wells dug by hand and purchased pumps to bring the water into their homes. In these villages, the wells are shallow and water supply and quality is variable.
We now have to categorize the villages by type of water problem and then decide which villages we can improve. We will then come up with solutions and try to apply them everywhere they will help. Visiting the villages has given us a very good overall perspective on the region. Also, it has been very enlightening and has taught us much about the local culture.
Today we journeyed into the mountains to visit one of the mountain villages. There, we had the privilege of experiencing the culture of the hilltribes. What we found intersting was the isolation of these villages to the rest of Mae Wen. The particular villages we went to were inhabited by Lisu people, which is a minority ethnic group in Thailand and Myanmar. Everyone was very hospitable and welcoming. We have been very fortunate to see all of these wonderful places and meet these friendly people. Hopefully we will give back much to these communities.

Health Official/Testing??

The past two days have involved a lot of planning and trying to contact important individuals in Phrao. There are eleven villages in the sub-district of Mae Wen and we would like to assess the water system in each village. There are, however, issues with the testing so far. Since we do not have our own testing kit we have to send the sample away to get tested. We have found one local testing agency but they do not test for Manganese which is one of our main concerns. There is also another testing agency in Chiang Mai, the nearest city, but they are very costly and will take too long to get back to us. So we are in the process of finding an affordable and fast testing center.

Today, our team was able to meet with the health official in one of the local clinics. This clinic takes care of three of the villages in Mae Wen. The official does not believe that anyone has had water-borne illnesses, which removes one major potential problem. The official was, however, able to give us a database of all the illnesses that occurred in the last year and in what village. We are currently in the process of analyzing this information.

We also visited two more villages! The first was village 10 which has a pretty good system in place. Each of the 500 members of the village has access to clean drinking water. Directly across the road is village 7, which has privately owned hand-dug wells ranging from 8-10 meters deep. These wells are costly to upkeep because every 3 years the pump needs to replaced which costs 3000 batt. Only three families in the whole village drink bottled water because the rest presumably cannot afford it.

Water, Water Everywhere

Today was an interesting and satisfying day. The EWB water team met with Tan Nayok, Chief Executive of Mae Wen sub-district, and Ajan (professor) Prasong to discuss water issues. They directed our attention to a recurring problem in the sixth village in the district, Nong Bua. We discussed how the pipes accumulate a mineral buildup that reduces pressure and flow of the water in the village. They gave us a map of the village with pipelines filled in and we had many of our questions answered.

We then headed into the village of Nong Bua itself to take a look at the wells, the filters and the pipes. They showed us some pipe sections and we were able to get an idea of the degree of buildup that is actually present. We are pretty sure that the buildup is iron and manganese, but we are now looking to get some proper tests. We will probably need to bring in some contacts/equipment from Chiang Mai to do this.

The rest of the day was spent practicing riding our motorbikes. We will eventually be using them to get around, so it was good to get some riding time before we actually hit the road. It was also very entertaining to watch some volunteers struggling not to crash, and other volunteers crash (no injuries, though).

Bonding Time

Together with the Thai staff, we ended our busy day and busy week with a Thai-style barbecue. This was an awesome and important event because it allowed us to interact with each other in lax and fun atmosphere. Everybody took part in preparing this event by performing tasks such as setting up the place, grocery shopping, cooking, and borrowing plates and other equipment from the temple. In Thai barbecue a plate/cooking surface is placed on top of charcoal and the rim is filled with a broth. We then would cook the meats and vegetables on the spot ensuring that the food was fresh.

Towards the end of the meal, we began singing songs on the karaoke machine. We all took turns showing off our amazing singing skills. What I really enjoyed was the fact that not only were we singing and dancing with the Warm Heart Thai staff, but also with the local government officials. This can be seen in the picture above. Notice how we are wearing our blue Lanna shirt.

Once again this was an amazing experience. It definitely helped in loosening the cultural and language barriers that naturally exist. I feel and look forward to accomplish a lot more in the coming weeks.

A few updates regarding the project. Tomorrow we will be meeting with local officials and will be discussing with them more details of our project. We will also be visiting the villages that we will be working with and reviewing a census of these villages acquired by the district government.

Meetings, Meetings

Something that I hadn't expected from rural Thailand is the level of formality and politeness involved with both office and personal interactions. For this reason, we have spent the first week having briefings from the NGO staff and having formal meetings with many important people in the district. To quote professor Shafer, "working in a different language triples the amount of time" things take to do. Between introductions, wai-ing (the Thai formal greeting with the hands together palm-to-palm, placed in front of the face), translations and speeches, it takes quite a while to get into the swing of things. On the positive side, we are learning to exist in Thai society in a respectful manner and we are beginning to get to know some key officials for our project.

We met the Chief District Officer, the public health officer, the chief of police, several village headmen, the council of elders, the president of Warm Heart and important officers at the Aubautau (the Thai word for the district) government office. Many of these people made speeches at the conference room of the Aubautau and these were followed by ceremonial presentations of tissue boxes with ornate coverings. I'm not certain of the significance, but it is the NGO's way of showing appreciation for their time and input. Again, this is one of the many measures of politeness that we have learned to be so integral to Thai culture. Since we volunteers are supposed to be model citizens, we must always be polite through modest dress, appropriate greetings, avoiding touching other people's heads, keeping our feet away from others, avoiding stepping over people and of course, using the words "khrup" or "kha" at the end of sentences to show good intentions.

As representatives of the USA, EWB and Warm Heart, we must always be on our best behavior here. We have made it a policy to wear yellow collared shirts with the king's name and seal on them every Monday. On Fridays we wear blue Lanna (northern Thai) shirts, but the other days are open to anything appropriate. Living here takes adjusting in many ways, but it is very educational and very enjoyable to become learned in a different culture that is so rich.

Beautiful Phrao

Picture from left to right: Laith, Paul, Dave, Shannon, Rose, Gaudhi, Huyen, Ronn, Jess, Jessica(me), Andrea, Andy, and Professor Shafer

What some may think of as heavenly and exotic cannot even begin to describe the scenery in the Phrao district of northern Thailand. This absolutely stunning landscape shows the great purity in this area. There are mountains covered in fog and banana trees lining the small dirt roads. In this beautiful region, the organization of Warm Heart Thailand has been founded. Warm Heart Foundation is the non-governmental organization we are working with to clean the water. It was co-founded by Professor Shafer, a Rutgers professor, who has dedicated most of his life to projects like this. The very new foundation hopes to improve the lives of people in this poor area. They are working on many other projects besides just our water project. There are people working here from University of California San Diego, Northeastern, and many more from Rutgers. The projects include carbon credit, organic gardening, micro enterprise, database/IT, and building a children's home. Everyday the group of us hop in the back of this pick up truck and drive fifteen minutes to the office in town. At the office we meet with the Thai staff, which consist of researchers, community leaders, and secretaries. The plan is to work with at least one Thai member on this project. It is really exciting to know that we will get to learn about Thailand with the help of natives.
The group of Americans usually eats lunch in this little noodle shop just a few yards down the road. They have the most amazing noodle soup for only 15 batt (about 50 cents)! After the workday we have been walking about the amazing town; going in caves and visiting temples.
To help us become more fluent in Thai we will be getting lessons three times a week from the Thai staff.
We are having a blast!!