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Travels to Apatut: February/March 2012
I spent ten days living in Apatut, a small farming community in Balaoan, a municipality within the province of La Union, about 300 km northwest of Manila. Michael Baker Jr., Inc. sponsored me to travel to the Phillippines for EWB-MAP (Engineers without Borders Mid-Atlantic Professionals) to oversee well drilling and to prepare for later design…
Tippy Taps 101: The Basics
During the most recent assessment trip to Apatut in November 2014, the teachers at the community’s elementary school requested a Tippy Tap for student and faculty use. A Tippy Tap functions as a sink in places where running water may not be available. Therefore, in lieu of a sink, a Tippy Tap is essential for…
Tippy-Taps: A new sanitation approach for the community of Apatut
Robert DiFilippo and I visited Apatut last April. One of our goals for the trip was to build a tippy-tap at the community elementary school and to present the students with effective sanitation practices. Tippy-taps were first developed by Dr. Jim Watt of the Salvation Army in Chiweshe, Zimbabwe1 and are now used in several…
Team 2 arrives in Apatut
We arrived in Apatut at about 5 pm on a Monday night, after almost 36 hours of travel to get there (we had a brief respite in Manila between the 3-leg 24-hour flight and the 9 hour bus ride from Manila to Apatut). Upon arrival, we learned just how busy Team 1 had been! After…
November 2014 Trip – Travel Team #1
I traveled to Apatut in November, as a part of the first travel team, along with Bob DiFlippo and Steve Kim. Having never been to the Philippines, or anywhere else in Asia, I did quite a bit of “Googling” before the trip, and I quickly learned how diverse this country is. It is comprised of…
Return to Apatut: Community and Well Assessment, Oct 27-Nov 5
The EWB-MAP team scheduled a trip to Apatut for additional assessments and investigations October 27-November 16; the trip was broken down in two phases, with four members arriving in Apatut October 29 (Walt Walker, Bob DiFilippo, Steve Kim, Anne-Marie Biser) and two additional persons arriving on November 5. We arrived during the week of an…

