Made In China Has A Whole New Meaning: CISS Water Project

The last week of September was filled with the Concordia International School Shanghai traveling to Yunnan to complete three projects with CWEF. Myself and two co-workers took 20 of these high school students to a rural village near the border of Myanmar to install a clean drinking water system. A full day of travel along some bumpy and curvy roads landed us in the middle of some beautiful scenery.

We spent our days in the village out on the mountain side digging a two foot deep trench to lay pipes for the water system. The fresh water source was about 10 km away from the village, the pipes would lead all the way into the village and then to each person household to a faucet with a water meter. The students put in some hard days of digging and laid pipe for a few hundred meters. On the rainy days, we helped the villagers with some other chores, pulling corn kernels from the cob for pig feed and separating rice kernels from the shell.

Overall it was a very humbling experience. We visited a few families in their homes and interviewed them about their daily lives. One of the families was one of the poorest in the village and explained they only had enough money to afford one pig and one chicken and they ate meat about once a month. The whole village was very welcoming and gracious to host us.

We did not get to complete the water system on our trip, but I pr-y that the village will finish and sustain the system for years to come, that when the rainy season is over, they will still have plenty of water flowing into the village.