Working in Cambodia Week 2 by Yao Guan

Today marks the completion of my second week here in Cambodia. So much has happened and so many experiences were made. In the next few blogs, I will be documenting my experiences and my work progress in Cambodia. First off, I am a recent graduate from the University of California, Davis in mechanical engineering. I am working in Cambodia for one month with two other mechanical engineering students on an engineering project. Throughout this time, we are partnering with an NGO based in Cambodia called WetlandsWork. The project focuses on developing a sustainable sanitation system for the floating villages in Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia. Due to their open water deification and waste treatment, it is imperative to look for a solution to better their sanitation practices. So far, WetlandsWork had developed a feasible sanitation system and we were asked to design a way to attach it to the floating houses. This project is challenging because we have to design something that will work for all of the floating houses that have different structural integrity. Over the last six months in the USA, we have designed, prototyped, and tested our solution. Now we are here in Cambodia to implement our design.

On the first week, we arrive to a completely different world. The schedules here are much different than from the States. Usually I find myself hard to wake up in the morning, but here it was very easy to wake up 7am in the morning. Maybe it is because of the humid heat that envelopes our body in the hot afternoon, which deters us from waking up late. Or maybe it is because of the construction that happens right next door of our Airbnb apartment every morning. Either way, time works very differently here. People are more sluggish due to the humid heat, but at the same time they are very productive. I would find myself waking up 7am in the morning, eat breakfast, do work, eat lunch, take a nap in the afternoon when it is the hottest time of the day, wake up and do more work, wait for nightfall, and eat dinner. This process repeats itself every day.

On August 6th, we stayed in the floating village for two days to assess the houses there. For the first time, we got to see what we are designing for. During our stay, we got to experience a different lifestyle. Instead of housing on land, we were sleeping on floating houses. There were no trash cans, and clean water was limited, so showers were hard to obtain for a foreigner. Though it was a difficult living condition for us, we got to taste different kinds of tasty Khmer food. The villagers were very friendly. Lifestyle in this community seems much unified. Each villager trusts each other. No matter the gender, they were comfortable enough to take showers on the edge of their house in the open. When riding the boat along the lake to our work site, villagers would wave hi and greet us with warm welcomes. At night, we would dine with our host and tell stories about our home country. The villagers were eager to learn about us and we were eager to learn about them.

Here are pictures of the floating village and our meetings:

At WetlandsWork office looking at the sanitation model. (Going from left to right, top to bottom; Taber Hand, founder of Wetlandswork. Rachel, teammate. Professor Moore, engineering consultant. Joanne, teammate. Chandy, translator and field assistant.)

Little floating store

Phat Sanday floating village, the place where we will implement our designs.

Meeting on a floating house about designs and schedules. (Far left are two of my teammates. Middle left with hat is our professor, Jason Moore, who introduced us to this project. Middle without shirt is Hakley, our host for staying in the floating village. Right side are Wetlands Work! staffs, with the front facing one, Puthea, our project coordinator.)

After assessing our work space, we had some modifications to our design. So far, we have modified our previous design and came up with new ones. We are awaiting for feedback from the NGO. Once our design is finalized, we plan on going back to the village within the next week to prototype and test our design. Due to IP contracts, I can only post general photos of our experience in Cambodia.