A beautiful landscape
Rosette’s home over looks a beautiful fertile valley where crops are neatly planted. Cows wander up and down the valley paths, and in the distance she can see the swamp at the base of the valley. This is the water source for the valley village. Her home is simple; a mud brick home with a corrugated tin roof and a dirt floor. Inside there is a low wooden bench covered with a fabric scarf. The bench offers visitors a place to sit. The only other piece of “furniture” in her sitting room is her SAM3 filter.
Rosette has a hard life. Her violent husband no longer lives with her and their children and so she has to support the family. She works as a day laborer on the hillside of the valley tending and harvesting the crops. Her filter is the envy of the many in the area that do not have a SAM3 filter. People come by and often ask her to sell the filter to them. In her circumstances it could be a temptation to sell the filter, but Rosette always turns down the offer of money for her filter.
Not for sale, but how does free sound?
She says she signed a paper when 20 Liters gave her the filter. She has promised never to sell the filter, but rather to share. Sharing the water is something she willingly does for any who pass by or for those who want to filter water in her home. She is happy that she signed the paper because people leave her alone and when they hear that she signed a contract with the 20 Liters Water Team.
When asked if she had not signed the paper would she ever sell the filter, she said “NO!” Before the filter she did not have money to buy wood so that she could boil her water. Her family drank the water straight from the swamp. Drinking that water gave her family chronic diarrhea and worms. Since she brought her filter home about a year ago, she and her family have not been to the health clinic for waterborne disease.
Rosette is so grateful to God, and to the people who made it possible for her to have a filter, for the good health of her family and for the love that was shown to her with this gift.
