Another Reservoir Photo

Here is one of Jenn's photos of the reservoir on our first day back to the site.

Opening Ceremony Part 2

The opening ceremony was amazing. Over 600 people attending, flags running along the completed embankment, ribbons covering the watergate. It was incredible.
The ceremony started about 45 minutes late because the Deputy Provincial Governor, shown above, arrived late. Speeches were made by Someth, Narith, Tobias, wiL and myself. The westerner speeches were translated into Khmer by Chai. When the Deputy Provincial Governor started his speech he made a last second request for Chai to translate his Khmer speech into English so that the westerners in attendance could understand. Chai looked a little flustered but really didn't have a choice and proceeded with the impromptu translation.

The Governor's speech was interesting. He had a prepared written speech in front of him but began his speech by announcing that he would not be reading the prepared speech but would just talk about the project. He proceeded to ramble on for 30 minutes about the project, about the wealth of Americans, about how the villagers need to request additional projects from us and then he committed to build a road from the Balang Commune to the Commune north of the site. At one point he asked the villagers to raise their hand if they were interested in Human Translation building a secondary school in Balang then turned to Tobias and asked him to build a secondary school.

After the speeches, we all walked along the embankment for the watergate ribbon cutting. Seeing all of the people at the watergate was definitely my favorite part of the ceremony. The site has been an isolated place for the majority of the project and to see all of these friends, colleagues and villagers at the watergate was incredible.


It was extremely hot that day so as soon as the ceremony was complete the site cleared out pretty quick. The HT and EWB crews hung out for a bit while Jenn and Chai did a quick site review. It wasn't until this point that I noticed the sign that was hung up at the back of the stage (shown above).

Still can't believe the reservoir is retaining water again.

KAP RIP

It is with a heavy heart that we must announce the passing of a dear member of the EWB team, the Kite Ariel Photography (KAP) kite. On a trip to the flooded forest, the kite took a nose dive into the Tonle Sap, the string snapped and none of us cared enough to jump in after it. wiL was actually complaining the day before that he wanted to get a bigger kite. But we certainly have some fond memories of running around the site trying to get that thing into the air.

Monitoring Wells

Now that the reservoir can retain water again, we need to monitor the flow of water through the embankment.


So during this last trip we began the installation of a monitoring well than can be used to measure the depth of water at a particular location. The diagram above is what a monitoring well should look like. Water is supposed to seep into the pipe without the fine soil clogging the perforations in the pipe. Then you can take off the cap and measure the water depth.


So we embarked on another fun Cambodian adventure of improvised technology. This is a photo of wiL cutting the perforation slits into the PVC pipe in front of the Human Translation office.


We used our old hand auger to dig the hole, Jenn picked out this beautiful purple synthetic fabric at the old market that we used for a filter fabric. Then we used sand left over from the concrete construction to pack around the PVC pipe.


Finally, we mixed the concrete on site and poured the pad around the top of the well. Chai helped us install this one monitoring well so he will be able to install the 8 additional wells required in the near future.

Please Protect This Water Gate

Chai painted this sign onto the watergate. It translates as "Please protect this watergate".