YONG MIN VILLAGE, China – Our water system in Yong Min is a complete success. We ran a water line 765 yards from a mountain spring into the camp of 300 people.

The water flows into two large metal storage tanks at either end of the camp. The villagers were overjoyed and already using the water in every imaginable application. Women were busy washing clothes outside their temporary homes. Before, they had to haul the laundry to the spring, wash it, and then haul it back.

The water system has ended hours of lugging heavy containers filled with water. Previously, each family had these containers back and forth every day. Now that time can be spent in more productive ways, such as cleaning up their village and rebuilding their lives.

The water pressure is unbelievable. We watched as a boy held the outlet of one of the water pipes over his mother’s cup. She wanted a drink and it was his job to fill it. When he turned the valve the water came shooting out and sprayed us all. It was great.

The village leader was thrilled and thanked us profusely. We have now provided a latrine and a much needed water solution for the people in the village. One of our water tanks was placed in what will become the camp kitchen.

It was beautiful up in the mountains today, giant butterflies the size of birds flew around us as we spoke with the villagers. As we left the village Mr. Xu said “I never realized how good it feels to help people.” This is his first experience working in the humanitarian field and he was touched by the villager’s gratefulness.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Asia, China Disaster, David Darg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.