Must have been that numerical error report that came out on screen after I posted my comment on your Uganda story that caused the duplication glitch of my comment.

It’s amazing that you brought this Capaculan story up, Graeme! I’ve been to Capaculan a few times for some developmental communication work. The last time I was there on a two-week teaching stint (I teach language proficiency to rural schoolteachers and theater to rural kids), I stayed with Camille Valencia and her family (she’s the little girl interviewed for the Plan story you featured). People in Capaculan get their water from communal manual pumps that produce what, I believe, they call ”hard water.” It was a bit extreme, though typical of Filipino hospitality, to have me welcomed that way in their home. Camille and her two younger brothers would take turns fetching bath water for me on my first morning there, before my classes started. I called off the children’s effort as I was embarrassed that kids had to supply this big adult with her bath water. I am so glad to hear that water sanitation is being addressed in that place (and in many other rural places in the Philippines, by Plan). After that teaching stint at Capaculan, I came back to Manila with some form of skin disease which, thankfully, got cured after a short while.