More Progress in the Third World

Did you ever think for a moment that the city sewer system wasn't always there?

How about the next step in that thought process... What would it be like to install city water and sewer in a place that already had some infrastructure, like power, telephone, roads, and some other services?

Yes, that's a picture of people holding up frayed electrical lines with rickety bamboo poles, all while a gigantic backhoe digs a trench about 2 meters deep and another machine (shown) drives 10 meter metal pilings into the ground.

This is already about the most dangerous construction site I've ever seen. How could it possibly get worse? Add in some local traffic and torrential downpours.

I did get to experience a unique kind of detour yesterday. They were tearing up another part of the street and had traffic go around. Their solution was to literally have us drive through the front part of a sidewalk restaurant. Yes, right next to the tables.

Oh, and those downpours? There was an especially windy gust of weather this afternoon, and one of the drivers got a text message. The government will frequently send out free warnings to people on their cell phones about weather and helpful tips (like go indoors if lightning is striking). Now that sounds like a step ahead of the US. I could never see any US carrier agreeing to do that!