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Thoughts from The Well

2011-04-04 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Global development · documentary visit

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

Hank narrates the Savann Tabak villagers' walk to their water source, past a broken well, a sugar cane mill and storehouses on stilts, to a muddy spring, and reports that about six villagers recently died of cholera. He says they need a sustainable well, which Water.org will provide, and asks viewers to follow and give.

What is said

00:00:03 — Back to Savann Tabak: the villagers lead Hank on a walk to their water; the broken well and the argument over when it last worked

  • ★★★ Hank says that right after he first met the people of Savann Tabak, the village he visited in Haiti, they took him on a walk to where they currently get their water. — 00:00:03 · Haiti
  • ★★ Hank says the walk first passed the broken well, built at some point and broken who knows when; older villagers argued about when it last worked without consensus. — 00:00:16

00:00:38 — Along the walk: the sugar cane mill (juice, syrup, rum sold in Port-au-Prince) and storehouses on stilts against rats

  • ★★ Hank explains the sugar cane mill: cane is squeezed for juice, boiled in vats fired by spent stalks into a thick brown syrup, barrelled and shipped off to be fermented into rum sold in Port-au-Prince. — 00:00:43
  • ★★ Hank learns the houses on stilts are not homes but food stores, raised to block rodents, like a four-legged squirrel-proof bird feeder for human food and rats. (playful) — 00:01:09

00:01:28 — Sugar cane shared with kids, Hank's misplaced worry about sugar, teasing about his teeth, cactus fences

  • ★★ Given sugar cane, which tasted like honey but wetter, Hank followed his guide and shared it with kids, then worried about their sugar intake and felt like a douche: childhood obesity is not among Haiti's problems. (playful) — 00:01:28 · Haiti
  • ★ A villager teased that Hank's teeth must be rotten like his if he didn't want all the sugar cane; another defended Hank as just a nice guy. (playful) — 00:01:50
  • ★ Hank says everything in central Haiti is fenced by cactuses. — 00:01:59 · Haiti

00:02:07 — The spring: a warm, muddy hole in the ground where the village gets its water

  • ★★★ Hank says the spring was not what he pictured: a warm, muddy hole in the ground where the village gets its water, minutes after he had worried about the kids eating too much sugar. — 00:02:07

00:02:24 — No Carnival this year: about six people in the village died of cholera; cholera comes from dirty water

  • ★★ Hank recounts that the translator pressed a villager about what they did for Carnival, Haiti's biggest, funnest time; she said nothing and avoided the subject before explaining. — 00:02:24 · Haiti
  • ★★★ Hank reports, from the villager via the translator, that around Carnival about six people in the village of sixty households had died of cholera. — 00:02:51
  • ★★★ Hank says cholera is not a nice disease: without a doctor or hospital within a couple of days there's a really good chance you die, and people get it from drinking dirty water like the water he saw. — 00:02:59

00:03:08 — What they need is a sustainable well and infrastructure; Water.org will get it; follow and give at my.water.org/vlogbrothers

  • ★★★ Hank says what the village needs is a well plus community infrastructure to keep it a sustainable water source for the community's lifetime, and that Water.org is going to get them that. — 00:03:08
  • ★★★ Hank points viewers to my.water.org/vlogbrothers to see Savann Tabak's progress toward a sustainable water source and to give Water.org money for them and others like them. — 00:03:25

00:03:40 — Hank will make one more Haiti video, on how Water.org changes the model of charity; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says he will make one more video about Haiti, on how Water.org and its member organizations are changing charity from creating dependence to creating independence. — 00:03:40

Threads in this video

Replies to

  • Helping Haiti — «So a couple of weeks ago I introduced you to some of the people of Savann Tabak»

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