Derek Zoolander and my meh attempts to drill a well ......

Apologies, this post is super late! I am now actually finished with my time at Trailblazer in Siem Reap and am in Phnom Penh for one week to do a few interviews with NGOs here before going home on the 24th. Where has this entire summer gone?!

Part of what I had been doing with Trailblazer was going out with the well drilling team (with Sumnang, Vichet, and Kat) to villages around Siem Reap Province. The village chief chooses the family who receives the well, while the family chooses where they want the well. Trailblazer makes sure to work within existing village systems instead of waltzing up with wells and installing them, in turn increasing the sustainability of the project because it is integrated within the community.

I went to Trapeang Svay Village, Reul Commune, Puk District twice. Fun fact: “Trapeang Svay” means “Mango Pond.” I did not see any mangoes when I was there.

My first time in Trapeang Svay we were drilling the actual well. I pretty much embodied Derek Zoolander coal mining as I was basically utterly useless for drilling. This is not a machine drill-- this is a manual drill that you need to be pushing down onto while twisting. A sort of jump-push-twist movement that no machine in the gym can simulate well (or maybe, I need to go to the gym more). The pole is actually made from a bunch of poles linked together with a handled twisting contraption. This is tough work!! Simple and easy(ish) for the well drilling team when the water source is close to the surface, a lot harder for everyone when you have to drill through clay and rock (as we did).

Water being pumped into the truck. Pretty sure the water
buffalo just chilling was not too pleased.

To make the well at first before any drilling, we dug a small pit close to the would-be well that we then filled with water. This water was pushed down the hole (that would become the well source) to coax the pole to go deeper while drilling. 

When the pit ran out of water, we went to a river/field/pond nearby and got water using a pump and lots of tarps (and in the end, most of the water ended up on the ground, not in the pit) laid out in the back of the truck. Two little boys accompanied us for this (although this was midday, many schools are only for half days), and Sumnang and Vichet seemed to trust them more than me. This might have been perhaps due to my Derek Zoolander status or my being a woman, which sadly is more likely to be the main factor.

We continued drilling, only breaking for a meal of morning glory (Khmer water spinach), rice, and oily bony fish with a red tomato/onion sauce. At the end of day, we hit eighteen meters. We tried to pump water from the ground (an up and down movement with one pipe within the other) but sadly with no avail. We had to take out the piping from the well and succumb to the fact that the next day we would be back to drilling. In the end, this well had to be twenty-five meters deep, while at other homes in the village ten meters deep was sufficient.

In Trapeang Svay the second time but at different part of the village, I could help a bit more. This time, rather than drilling, we were making the cement base for the well. Again, this was completely manual. We had no cement machine, but rather I manually mixed the Camel cement mix and sand together with water and a shovel to make the functioning cement.

1. We dug a dirt platform and flattened it right in front of where the well pump was.
2. We then put large rocks in the dirt--still retaining platform’s flat structure (in other words, the rocks we used were flat on at least one part).
3. We filled in the dirt gaps surrounding the large rocks with smaller stones.
4. We built a brick square around the well’s platform that would later become the raised edge of the well structure.
5. We put the concrete mixture on the bricks, and then the stone.

This is super confusing without a plethora of visuals that my slow internet prohibits me from uploading (hopefully the ones that did upload are okay!!), but I hope it makes some sense! Basically: ground --> platform base -->  walls --> finished well. I have noticed that whenever going into villages for filter installation or well drilling, the project seems to encompass the entire village and not just the filter or well team. While in the US one might not help the contractors re-doing your kitchen, in Cambodia this seems completely normal and appropriate.

The mom at this home seemed to have really taken a liking to me, especially as I was helping her son with his English (he was perhaps the only child who actually would talk to me when I spoke to him without parents’ help!). I also sat and talked with her about all of her children, told her about my family, and also looked through her daughter's drawing book which was adorable. Her school notebooks showed photos of (still) current prime minister Hun Sen and his wife--unsurprising to say the least. The mom also wanted to make sure that I was out of the sun to protect my super white skin, and kept telling me to be very careful with my head because I am so tall. When she found out that I was vegetarian, she sent her daughter out to buy me rambutans! I was elated at their kindness, even though I have no qualms about having morning glory and rice every day.