A Well for Zuun Kharaa?

Soylomaa and her husband drove us to Zuun-Kharaa.  When we arrived, Soyolmaa, Elder Lasson and I received a warm reception by the Governor of Zuun Kharaa, who was excited we wanted to put a water well in his city.  Also, during Elder Lasson’s introduction, the governor’s eyes lit up when Elder Lasson mentioned our neonatal project.  He said that during the last year eight babies in his town had died at birth and they were really concerned about it.  He immediately called the head of the local hospital to come and talk to us.  We followed her to the hospital where she told us that her staff had been really distraught over having eight babies die this year. She said they were really wondering if they weren’t good doctors and they had even had counseling sessions for their doctors who felt very distraught.  She said they performed autopsies on the babies and discovered exactly what we had been describing.  The babies’ lungs were not inflated.  She said we were sent from above.   She said they were really interested in taking DIC’s neonatal training and would love to have the opportunity of sending some people to the training. 

We then met with the Governor of the First Khoroo who said they had needs for clean water, however after a tour of his Khoroo, we found them to be well supplied with either wells or dump stations.  Even though we would love to provide a well for them, we felt we should continue looking for a greater need.  The Governor of the Second Khoroo was preoccupied, so we left, hoping we would find someone else to talk to.  The Governor of the Third Khoroo was very interested in our offer to examine his Khoroo for a place to put in a well.  He said that over 7,000 people in the Valley didn’t have clean water.  Many of the dwellers had shallow wells of about 10 feet deep with their outhouses about 30 to 40 feet away.  When we talked earlier to the doctor at the hospital, she told us that putting in a clean-water well would really help lighten their load at the hospital because many people got sick, she thought, because of the poor water quality.  Anyway, the Governor of the Third Khoroo seemed excited about having a well in his community, so he took us to a site he thought would be a good place to put one.  While Soyolmaa, Inkbold, the Governor, neighborhood children and a few cows looked on, Elder Lasson set up his laptop with a portable GPS device attached and got a GPS reading of the latitude and longitude of the proposed well.