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AguaClara was just one of the many class that I took without thinking about it much, but now, for this semester, AguaClara is the most important class I am taking.
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Michael Liu's Journal
Traveling through the underprivileged parts of Honduras was an experience that was completely different from what I had anticipated. What took me by surprise was the impact the children in Hondruas had on me. Before traveling to Honduras I had no personal connection with the work I was doing. I only read about the impacts that AguaClara created in Honduras but i did not truly feel affected by them. After the home stays with various families throughout Honduras I now have faces and personalities I can place my work with. The faces and personalities that are etched deepest in my mind are the faces of the children that met at these home stays by the name of Jorge Luis and Jenny.
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January 10, 2011 - We arrived today in Atima around 5 PM. Traveling here was maybe the bumpiest road I've ever been on. We were immediately distributed into host families. I'm staying with the owner of Pulperia Jenny. His two kids are Jorge Luis (8 years old) and Jenny (5 years old). We had a brief meeting with the mayor and he outlined the town's water problem. Recently a construction project broke part of the distribution line, so many places in the town are not receiving water. My host family doesn't have any running water. Right now the water they use for cooking and drinking is sent through a point-of-use filter given to them by a brigade. It looks like a 5-gallon bucket with a cylindrical canister filtering the water. My host family really didn't know how or if it worked. To me, it looked like some sort of cylinder containing activated carbon but I couldn't tell for sure.
January 11, 2011 - I woke up this morning and took a shower with a bucket of cold, dirty water. I was shivering the whole time because it was a cool morning. We met up with the rest of the team at breakfast. Jorge Luis and Jenny were there and were making fun of me for "sleeping in" until 8 AM and calling me a sleepyhead. They're fun kids. I haven't heard them complain or be upset about anything the entire time we've been here. I think Jorge Luis is especially mature for his age. It's hard for me to think about them growing up without any running water in their house, or think about them getting sick because of dirty water. It makes me feel proud to be part of a group of people who's actually taking concrete steps to help people in these situations. I'm glad the town is in touch with AguaClara - the townspeople owe it to their kids to do something about the drinking water problem.
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Robert Solaski's Reflection
AguaClara has served as a major catalyst in my life and given me the guidance needed to realize my full potential as an engineer.
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