Clay Run (And a Sincere Apology)

Three weeks without a post and I’m sure I’ve lost some of you.  It really is bad form for a blogger to write nothing for so long. I sincerely apologize for the hiatus and for leaving you hanging. I must backtrack about a month to catch you up – but what a month it’s been!

A combination of becoming suddenly very busy, passing the holidays, and making a visa run to Thailand had put me into some kind of writing slump. Writing requires digestion. When a person is too distracted to reflect, nothing of value can be written. It’s as if I’ve been eating and eating, but never digesting. Now that I have had some time to digest and write, you can read the crap that comes out!

December's Work, in Pictures

Not the official way to join two pipes... but it does work

Two weeks ago I joined up with Mok and his team. Right away, I was given charge of designing a system to bring springwater up to a village. We also took trips to and stayed at a few other rural villages around Yunnan. For one, we investigated a water resource system needing replacing. At another, we evaluated the results of a past water project, and brought government officials along. Then at two others, we interviewed villagers to see if starting a biogas project would be suitable.

To write about it all that has happened on these trips would require thousands of words. I've been told that pictures are worth about that many, so today I'll use them to tell my story. The following pictures are in chronological order.

The Water Here - Part 3: In the City and In the Air

Water in the City

One Saturday morning, I walked to the edge of the village, flagged down a bus, and was smuggled into the city. I don’t think I have ever been ‘smuggled’ anywhere before. It is a law that every passenger has a seat on the bus in order to pass the city gates; otherwise heavy fines are given to the bus operators. When my fellow workers and I got on the already full bus, instead of refusing paying customers, the driver’s wife pulled out short stools and had us sit, packed in the aisle, all squatting. Our heads only came up to the seated passengers’ shoulders, and in this way we were secretly transported past security and into the city.

The Water Here - Part 2: At the Factory

My first two full weeks here were spent at the Ceramics Water Filter factory, in a small village about half an hour outside of Kunming City. This post describes the water situation there, and what I've learned.

Water at the Factory

 Our tap water comes from a neighboring village higher in elevation, at the foot of Xi Shan, or West Mountain. It is operated manually, so the hours are inconsistent and vary widely. I guess when we have water depends on projected usage, time of year, amount stored at present, and how much the pump operator had to drink the previous night. To mitigate this, we have a unique water system of our own design. 

The Water Here - Part 1: Green Paint

Having been here a few weeks, I can now start to paint you an accurate picture of the water situation... in green!

A Lake of Green Paint

The first encountered, most well known, unavoidable and shocking water feature here is Dianchi, the enormous lake downstream of Kunming City. It struck me as odd when I saw it on Google Maps before coming here, but I dismissed it, thinking it was just poor image processing. No way could the lake be that color. I was right – Google's sky pictures show a dull, hazy green; in reality, it is a vivid, sickly green. Seen from a satellite, neither the thick viscosity nor the odor is communicated. see pictures below

You Make Me Sick

You make me sick. Homesick that is… I know you lucky bums are getting excited about Thanksgiving right about now. You’re probably all ready to fatten yourself up for the coming winter. I can nearly hear you going turkey crazy, bragging about how much you eat every year, and how you fall asleep immediately after feasting HAHAHA. Some modern jackass will say it’s due to the trypto-whatever that makes you sleepy. How impressive. Another will say trypto-whatever’s in chicken too, so we eat it all the time, duh. Well you know what? The thought of you is making me homesick! And my writing this is making me hungry!

Made In China - Part 2

(cont. from Part 1)

Made In China - Part 1

Temporarily living the life of a Chinese factory worker, my first week in China has been one filled with hard, rewarding work that will directly give clean water to people. I have been happy to help solve some problems with practical engineering, and have also learned much. At the end of the week, I became ill and had no spirit to write. Now that I am alive again, and able to get around the Great Firewall of China using a VPN, here is my first post since leaving Taiwan.

End of Chapter 1

I awoke with a sense of surprise; this day had come too soon. I should have known - days like this have a tendency to come too soon. My things were packed, and I was up ahead of the sun as planned. I was well prepared, but didn’t feel ready to take on my final day in Hualien. I like my days to be full, but this full day was one to be taken on because it would require careful reflection of my time here and many goodbyes. The reflection I can handle; it’s the goodbyes that get me.

Safety First!

Following up that lengthy previous post with a brief(er) one about dangers and safety. Also included are some completely unrelated photos, for your viewing pleasure - finally got my camera fixed.

"安全第一!" (Safety first!) is something many people here have been saying to me. However, it seems they do not very well follow their own advice...