When You Turn On that Water Tap....

I know many consumers in the Klang Valley have complaints about the water quality and some claim you can get "teh tarik" or "kopi tarik" depending on the time of day.

There is no doubt that our water quality has gone down over the years and it seems that not much is being done to supply top quality water except to encourage people to install water filters in every home.

I recently uploaded a photo of a murky looking pool and invited readers to guess what it was.

Here are two more photos to complete the scene.
This is actually a water supply system for an Orang Asli village somewhere in Johor.
I visited the village of about 30 families about a month ago as part of an outreach program to upgrade the quality of life of Malaysia's original settlers.

The village was located adjacent to a well-known plantation company and within walking distance of some of the staff quarters.
The site was well-maintained, quite like a typical Malay kampong but with dogs and free-range chicken.

The villagers used to collect water in containers from the mountain stream but my church is trying to provide them some basic facilities like a water-supply system that can improve their lives.

The first photo in a previous entry is a mini-dam about one meter high across a mountain stream and pipes at the bottom convey the water to a storage tank of about 500 gallons capacity that is sitting on a level platform cut on the slope.

The water from the tank is then piped directly to each home without any treatment but villagers boil the water before drinking.

I tasted some of the boiled water with some hesitation but it did not have any after effect. Maybe my system is flexible as I do drink NeWater too!
When the tank is empty, the villagers have to collect water as before.

So before we complain about your "teh tarik" water we should spare a thought for these Orang Asli who have definitely been marginalised from our nation's progress.

As for that plantation company, it would be a good exercise in Corporate Social Responsibility if they could just provide some free treated water to this village.