Friday, June 20, 2008

Grassing Party

We held our second big grassing party on Thursday, June 19th, to try and complete the embankment grassing for the reservoir. We had around 140 villagers participate along with 70 monks from the Wat Trach pagoda to complete another 20% of the embankment, which means we only have another 15% left. The day would not have been possible without the help of volunteer cooks from Prom Kod village, who cooked all of us a delicious meal, and various other villagers who helped set up the tents, collect firewood, wash dishes, donate ox-carts and refill the water supply. Without the support of the community we wouldn’t be able to pull off these events and therefore appreciate the time and effort that everyone contributes to the project. The monks from Wat Trach also deserve applause as their strength and continued support of the project sets a wonderful example for the community of Balangk to follow. Although we did not finish all the grassing, we still view the day as a huge success because as frustrating as it is working with uncooperative villages, it is more than worth the stress when you see other community members pull together to accomplish the goal at hand.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Concrete Completion


The concrete work for the water gate is complete as of last Friday, May 30th.
The backfilling of the wing walls was also completed last week allowing us to ride over the bridge of the water gate on our motorbikes. Our contractor's remaining crew is currently working on the rip rap lining while waiting until Sunday to remove the rest of the formwork. Chanda, our contractor and his team are a month and a half ahead of schedule, and we are very excited to see the finished product. We went out on Tuesday to test out the control bars of the gateway, and were very happy to see some red added to the water gate. We are now concentrating our efforts on mobilizing the villages to complete the embankment grassing - just another 30% left! We are organizing another big event on Thursday, June 12th to accomplish the grassing in one day. We believe it will be another success. We still have substantial work to do on the excavation of the downstream canals, and we'll begin our celebrations when that and our Water User Groups are up and running!

Bac Kron and Met Sin (the two living closest to the reservoir) pose on the water gate
Ceda, Tobias, Chai, Bac Kron and Met Sin inspecting the newly painted control bars