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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Heroes Special: Wine to Water
Aired December 21, 2013 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready to swim?
UNIDNETIFIED BOY: Yeah.
DOC HENDLEY, 2009 CNN HERO, FOUNDER, WINE TO WATER: To me water most simply represents life. You cannot have life without water.
You are good.
Water hands down is the absolute, greatest resource this planet has to offer. We have many other ways to fuel vehicles or our homes or our iPads. There's only one way to fuel our bodies.
There will be much more fighting, and unrest and war in this world because of water than there ever was because of oil.
My real name is Dixon Beattie Hendley, but everybody calls me Doc. I'm the founder and international president of Wine to Water. We are a nonprofit organization and our goal is to provide clean drinking water to people in need all over the world.
December 2003 is when I had the idea for Wine to Water. At the time, I really had no direction, I was happy with just being a bartender, playing music out. But then I started to think that maybe I had the ability to do more with my life than just be a bartender.
I remember the night very vividly when the phrase Wine to Water was kind of in my head and I couldn't get it out and then I began to research water but maybe I'm supposed to know something about water and then it was all kind of a snowball effect from there.
In 2003, a civil war broke out in western Sudan leading to a brutal genocide which displaced millions of people.
In August of 2004, I left for the Darfur region of Sudan. I stayed there for a year. I was a able to work alongside other organizations and I was over all the water and sanitation programs there.
This is what a typical camp looks like. It ain't the prettiest place in the world. These are some of the children here.
What's your name?
These things around her neck, they're supposed to keep away bullets. Darfur exposed me to a lot of the horrors of humanity. A couple of really close run-ins where I nearly lost my life. Our convoy was ambushed and that experience that changed my life and it basically gave me the foundation that I needed to build Wine to Water on.
You ready for more?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I was looking to have some cab.
HENDLEY: Some cab. All right.
We got our official start back in early 2004 and then it took five years to get around to four different countries and 25,000 people.
Wine to Water's philosophy is we believe that every single human being on this planet deserves the right to clean drinking water.
Then in 2009, I was nominated as a CNN Hero.
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS, PRESENTER: Please join me in honoring CNN Hero, Doc Hendley.
HENDLEY: Since the CNN Heroes program in 2009, Wine to Water has grown exponentially.
Thank you all so much for having us here today. It is a blessing. Thank you.
By 2012, we had expanded to 15 different countries around the world and reached almost a quarter of a million people. There are times when it's worth fighting for something or to protect something, and water is one of those things.
My goal by the end of 2014 is to have been able to have reached a million people in this world with clean drinking water.
I've been coming here to Uganda in East Africa since 2007, which is when Wine to Water first started its projects. We work all over Uganda. From near Kampala which is Uganda's capital to the central area of Kigumba, and even north of Gulu, near the south of Sudan border.
I guess I have always -- the last 10 years anyway -- viewed East Africa almost as a second home to me because of how much I changed, you know, as an individual in my time in Sudan, Darfur, just made such an impact on me.
So right here, we're standing over the top of the beginnings of the Nile River here in Uganda. And it's a little weird to be here because this is the most mighty river in the world. Yet the biggest need, the mightiest need for water is also right here in the same country.
Right now there's about one in three wells in Uganda that are broken. They're not working. And it's really expensive to drill a brand new well. But for a fraction of the cost, we can go back and rehabilitate some of the broken ones and also take a step further by teaching the locals how to maintain that well.
This school in Kigumba had a well put in quite a few years ago, but it's been broken for some time now. GILBERT: This place is called Masindiport Primary School.
HENDLEY: I met Gilbert back in 2007. And he's been helping us with our water projects all over Uganda, including well rehabilitation.
You actually used to be a teacher here at this school, is that correct?
GILBERT: Yes, I was a teacher here.
HENDLEY: And how many students are here at this school?
GILBERT: We have got enrollment of 597 pupils. Almost half of them at times tend not to come back to the school because of those water related problems.
HENDLEY: It's crazy.
Gilbert and I are here to assess the situation and basically get a crew out here to fix it.
GILBERT: Right now we are meeting Mohammad (ph).
HENDLEY: Mohammad, nice to meet you. I'm Doc.
MOHAMMAD: Nice to meet you, too. I'm the deputy head teacher of Masindiport Primary School.
HENDLEY: So is there a source nearby that they're actually having to walk to get the water?
MOHAMMAD: Yes, they get water from down there in the swamp. When there is no rain, of course, there is no water completely. Do you want to see it, sir?
HENDLEY: Yes, yes. I'd love to go and check it out. Thank you.
MOHAMMAD: All this water here.
HENDLEY: This is it here. So this is where they're gathering -- the children are gathering the water from right now?
MOHAMMAD: Yes, this is where we get water from.
HENDLEY: Obviously this water is not very safe for anyone but this is the water you have to use.
MOHAMMAD: Yes. This water we have to use.
HENDLEY: It looks more like the coffee I had this morning for breakfast. Is there another place that they can get water once this is empty?
GILBERT: The children have to move to a nearby water hole which is three to four kilometers from here. HENDLEY: And then they have to walk back with the water which is very heavy. Another three or four kilometers so six or seven kilometers all together.
To know that for six or seven months these kids have been walking and drinking that garbage water, I just could not believe it. I was shocked.
Mohammad, can you show me the bore hole? I'd love to take a look at it.
A typical bore hole well consists of a series of pipes that run from the earth's surface down to water in an underground aquifer. A hand pump on the surface is connected by a metal rod to a submerged pump in the aquifer which lifts clean water up the pipes and out the spout.
Obviously the handle's broken. It does seem like it's losing some pressure, and as the water is dropping back down, the pump, which could be why the handle was broken because they had to try to pump so much they were losing the water. There's probably some pipes that are busted in there that we can repair.
MOHAMMAD: It shall be very good if you can fix it for us and we can get water here.
HENDLEY: Yes. Yes. I would like that, too.
We'll get the top of the head here, pull the heavy pipes out of the ground, clamp down and then begin to lift everything up. Awesome. This is the clamp here. Pull. Don't drop it on my head.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm the only one not wearing a hat.
The local people on the ground are amazingly capable. Sometimes all they need is a little bit of training. That way when Cambodians (INAUDIBLE) the Ethiopians are getting help, they're seeing their own people come and help them. They're speaking in their own language. They're empowered by this and they're thinking, especially the kids, you know, maybe I can do that one day.
I tell you, it absolutely never gets old. Kind of hearing that water gurgle up and then to see it spew out at the top and hear all the kids cheering. Smiles on their face. They get so excited. They got this clean water now that they can wash their hands and drink right there at the school. It's one of the things that I live for, why I absolutely love doing what I do.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDLEY: I began traveling when I was younger quite a bit. Dropped out of my first semester at college and took off on my motorcycle and kind of lived all over the country. And then I began to travel the world a little bit as well before I got into this work. People, I think, are what make this life worth living. Building relationships with different people that I never would have had the opportunity to build relationships had I not hopped on a plane to go there, hopped on my bike.
So right now we are in Atiak, which is a village in the northern Uganda right near Sudan, and we're outside of a mosque where we're getting ready to finish up a rainwater containment system here.
Our rainwater harvesting systems are pretty simple. It's basically just a big old tank that's able to capture the rain that naturally falls out of the sky.
This tank that we're building right now is 15,000 liters so that's going to help 600 people right here in this community so the huts that you see all around here, they're now going to be accessing water right from that containment system instead of having to walk to a well or a standing water source.
Any chance that I get, especially when it's a new community and a new area, getting to know them ahead of the village, and starting to get to know the people a little bit, it's important. It's something I enjoy doing when we have that opportunity.
The imam of this mosque is Mohammed (INAUDIBLE). That means he's the spiritual leader for this Islamic community here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The community will enjoy having the water from the tank because we used to keep our water in jerry cans.
HENDLEY: So before the community would have to get the water in the jerry cans and then leave it sitting in the jerry cans here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put them inside. And now this will store at least enough water. Not only the Muslim community will use the well. The people around also will enjoy it.
HENDLEY: Thank you for letting us to be able to do this. We're excited and we hope that the water that we're able to help you provide is a blessing to you and your community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We hope in future, not only in the Congo, but other things which are shared together, because in this world we live by sharing with others as well.
HENDLEY: Of course. Of course. OK, Mohammed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Thank you
HENDLEY: Yes. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
HENDLEY: Life in rural Uganda is about as simple as it can get. They're living in these round circular huts, the grass thatched roofs that were made by hand with just plastered mud around the outside with these dirt floors. You know, once the side goes down, that's it. There's no more light, it's time -- it's time for bed.
When the sun comes up, you're going to wake up and the first thing you've got to do is all right, well, where am I going to get my water for the day?
But today Gilbert and I are bringing a biosand filter to a small village in Uganda to a family here. These things are not light, that's for sure. A biosand filter is basically simply is just a water filter. It's a big old thing that holds sand and gravel and you can take dirty water, you pour it in the top, and out of the nozzle on the front comes clean water.
All right. Looks pretty good.
Hi. How are you?
JAZ: I'm OK. Your name is Doc?
HENDLEY: Yes.
JAZ: Mine is Jaz.
HENDLEY: OK.
JAZ: Jaz. Yes.
HENDLEY: Nice to meet you.
JAZ: Yes.
HENDLEY: And Sarah, right?
SARAH: Yes.
HENDLEY: Nice to meet you, Sarah.
JAZ: Come here. Come here. Come here.
HENDLEY: Has she'd been having any stomach problems from the water?
JAZ: (INAUDIBLE) having stomach problem. We tried to buy medicine, but we don't know now what's going on.
HENDLEY: OK.
JAZ: All right.
HENDLEY: And so you haven't been able to get the medicine?
JAZ: Yes.
HENDLEY: Oh, man.
When I first got into this work, it was all kind of confusing to me a little bit, like, how is it that water is killing so many people? After doing a little bit of digging and some research, I found that it's basically diarrheal disease. It's the amoebas or the bacteria that's in that water. What comes from that is ultimately dehydration.
For a young child, if they have that diarrhea for two or three days, that's it, their bodies are too weak to experience that type of dehydration.
And so here's your biosand filter and we're really excited to have the opportunity to talk to you a little bit about it today and tell you how it works. So right here is the -- what your filter looks like. If we were to cut it so you could see inside of it.
This first layer is standing water that's on top of the layer stand here. Now that layer is very, very important because that's where the good bacteria lives. So there's good bacteria in that water that will actually eat the bad bacteria that's causing her to get sick.
If we don't teach them basically the proper way to maintain these filters, or give them a real strong desire to want to maintain it, then the projects fail and the filters will fail.
GILBERT: We have good this container that it's meant for storage.
HENDLEY: And this one stays clean because the water coming out is clean, so it's very important that we keep this container clean as well.
JAZ: OK.
HENDLEY: All right. So let's fill this thing up and get it working.
Doing something as simple as providing a biosand filter for a home, they're able to be more productive. They get a lot more done. The kids are in school more. So it's not just about the clean water, it's the overall improvement of life in general that happens when you bring a family something as simple as a biosand filter.
Back home in the states, there's a lot of people that are kind of, like, what do you do? You clean water?
You know, a lot of people can't quite wrap around the concept that there's such a huge need for it. As a western society, we have no idea what it's like to have to walk four or five hours to gain access to water.
I started to realize that we as human beings, we help with what we can empathize with. So a lot of times I'm trying to educate people back home just on that simple fact as well.
It's not always easy to get people to understand this. But I'm not going to give up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDLEY: Right now there's almost 200,000 refugees in Uganda. And they're coming from countries all around Uganda, but the majority are coming right from the continent. There's so many refugees that are fleeing the fighting, camps are overrun. But at a refugee camp, like Bubukwanga, they don't speak the same language as the people that are even running it. They're given some little space and some part of a tent. Their number one need before anything else, before food, before medical is going to be water.
These people, just (INAUDIBLE), their whole lives have been turned completely upside down. They have no idea if and when they'll ever get to go back home. The most at risk population of refugee camp by far is children.
I've got a 5- and a 3-year-old that are a lot of these little ones' age, you know. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to put my children in this situation.
We've got people that are living on top of each other, almost literally. The sanitation situation is not going good, all the human waste and stuff like that, and rain happens, and it all washes down to drinking water, and all that stuff together, it's enough to make a grown person completely sick. But a small child, especially under the age of 5, they're by far the most at risk.
Do this one like this.
There's so many hard things that a refugee has to deal with. But a lot of it is just the unknown.
LUCY BECK, U.N. REFUGEE AGENCY, UGANDA: My name is Lucy Beck. I'm the associate external relations officer for the U.N. Refugee Agency in Uganda.
HENDLEY: We're supposed to only have a capacity of about 12,000 in this camp right here, right? It seems like there's quite a bit more than that right now.
BECK: Yes. I mean, as of last night, we've got close to 20,000 so obviously that's nearly twice as many as we should be holding.
HENDLEY: You're calling this camp a transit center, is that right? Is that because you're not wanting the people to stay for a long, long period of time?
BECK: The idea of a transit center is that in some way relatively close to the border where people arrive first, and they get the basic services -- the water, health and shelter -- and then they move on to one of our settlements where they get parts of land and they can help with livelihoods. They can build their own homes. So ideally here people will only stay for two to three weeks maybe.
When we first arrived, this was the first area that we set services up. This is where the first people to relocate to their settlement will come from.
HENDLEY: Even though the camp is kind of overpopulated, and there's a lot of people, I'm really impressed with how things are going. There are many different styles of water filters that we work with, but the Sawyer filter is absolutely the perfect filter for a crisis situation or a refugee-style situation like what's going on in western Uganda. They're very light weight and very portable. But they're very effective in cleaning the water.
We're in the process right now of finishing up these 100 filters and then right after that there's going to be 100 heads of the household and those 100 people are going to receive their filter and also a training and education on how to use that filter.
KYLE LOMAX, PROJECTS MANAGER, WINE TO WATER: Paul, I need you to go find the dirtiest water in camp.
My name Kyle Lomax. My job here is Wine to Water is projects manager. I basically build relationships with people on the ground. These are the three more guys with the refugees that I've been working with.
HENDLEY: How's it going?
(CROSSTALK)
HENDLEY: What's your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm called Ezekia (ph).
HENDLEY: Ezekia. It's great to meet you in person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Glad to meet you, too, please.
HENDLEY: All three of them are currently refugees that also spent time in camps years ago and so they can relate directly to what these people's needs are.
LOMAX: I got one day, guys. Are you ready?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we are ready.
LOMAX: Yes? OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I left Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 because of war conflicts. So I decided to leave my country to come here in Uganda and become part of the refugees.
LOMAX: We have some water here for you. Will you take this water?
(LAUGHTER)
HENDLEY: Thank you guys for coming today. I wanted to explain to you the water filter that we're using that you're going to be taking with you. There may be some places in the camps that you're going where the water that you have to get may look like this. It's very dirty. So we want to do a quick demonstration and show you what this filter is able to do.
And then we'll teach you how to use your filter and how to maintain it because these filters, if you use them properly, will last you for the next 10 years.
Sawyer filter is a small filter that will fit on the end of a five- gallon bucket. Basically the water passes through a membrane that has really tiny, tiny porous holes through it and is able to capture 99.9999 percent of all the contaminants.
(APPLAUSE)
So I know a lot of you are going to be leaving to the settlement camp and so those of you that are leaving, we wanted each one of you to get one of these filters and then we're also going to be going back and making sure we bring more filters so that everyone else in the camp can also have these same filters that you have as well. And that's it. They're very simple.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HENDLEY: Did you get it?
These people, they're just trying to survive today. They're just trying to make it until tomorrow. We can cover 100 families, which is about 1,000 people. You know, so that's 5 percent of the population that needs these filters. It's what we could do, it's the filters that we had on hand here in Uganda. But we need to do a lot more.
Let's do what we're able to do right now and let's go back and mobilize and try to reach every single family in these camps.
LOMAX: Safe journey.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDLEY: I have two sons, Beatty who's 5 years old and Justice who's 3 years old.
AMBER, DOC HENDLEY'S WIFE: Justice, are you hungry? Are you starving?
HENDLEY: And my wife's name is Amber and she has been such a huge encouragement for me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mommy, is our food ready?
AMBER: Just about.
We always do breakfast. We always try to spend as much time as we can as a family.
HENDLEY: What do I have here? What do I have here?
Absolutely love Wine to Water, but I've always known since I have been married to Amber and have my kids, that they are the most important thing in my world.
Father, thank you for the day and the food and all your blessings. In Jesus' name. Amen. AMBER: Amen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.
HENDLEY: All right.
AMBER: All right.
HENDLEY: Who wants biscuits and gravy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me.
HENDLEY: All right.
Something as simple as breakfast together on a Saturday morning. Just those simple things like that, you know, I feel like I'm the happiest man in the world.
You guys want to go on an airplane?
AMBER: Yes?
HENDLEY: You want to come with Daddy on the next trip?
AMBER: A lot times when Doc is gone, it feels like I'm a single mom. And it gets lonely, but I know it's worth it because that's what makes a difference in the world.
HENDLEY: I'm watching.
AMBER: He has such a big heart. All he wants to do is help these people that have nothing.
HENDLEY: There you go. Good job, Beatty.
AMBER: I wouldn't want it any other way. I want my kids to see that and I want my kids to grow up with that type of love and passion.
HENDLEY: I missed a lot of things that a father's not supposed to miss.
Good job.
Beatty will be starting school soon, I'll be out of the country in the Amazon for one of those first days of school. The feeling I have towards them. The mount of love.
You got it. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It bounced.
HENDLEY: It counts, man, bouncing counts.
Amber always has this one saying that she tells me over and over. It's not the quantity of time, it's the quality of time. Leaving my family at home will never be easy. But I've got work to do. The best way for Wine to Water to reach more people and expand is to go there in person to find and develop new partnerships.
I was recently put in touch with a small well drilling organization in Columbia and it seems promising. And so I'm off.
I just arrived at a small town called Leticia in Columbia. It's deep in the jungles right along the borders of Peru and Brazil. This right now is the 16th country for Wine to Water. I already feel a special connection to the people here because everybody is riding a motorcycle. Just a little mini-metropolis in the middle of the Amazon jungle.
A lot of cities here are quite developed and they don't have a lot of the third world or developing style issues. However, in a jungle, there is still quite a few communities that are lacking basic resources such clean drinking water.
To me, one of my favorite things to do is to go into a new country for the very first time, to get on the ground, not really know what's going to happen, you know, that unknown newness is something I actually really look forward to.
Hey. How are you? Good to see you. You look a little bit different than you do on Skype.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You too.
HENDLEY: I only get to see this much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You look thinner.
(LAUGHTER)
HENDLEY: Gonzalo is the founder and director of Agua y Vida, which is a local Columbian organization that has access to a drilling machine.
So I'm just excited to have the opportunity to meet with him and get to know him a little bit and see if this partnership is something that can work out?
Are you from here originally?
GONZALO: Well, I was born in a town in the Amazon, but I moved here in 1990. About 20, 23 years ago.
HENDLEY: The very first thing that I look for in any type of partnership is trust. And then the second thing is a like-minded vision.
When did you come up with the name Agua y Vida?
GONZALO: Agua y Vida meant, we are bringing water to people. But water also means life. HENDLEY: So it's that. You're bringing physical clean water and helping physical lives and also trying to help with spiritual water that spiritualizes?
GONZALO: That's exactly.
HENDLEY: Very cool, man. How many wells have you drilled all together with the rig?
GONZALO: About 24.
HENDLEY: OK.
GONZALO: Maybe. About 80 percent I find water, and 20 percent --
HENDLEY: That's pretty good. Yes. I'd love to check out the rig, too, and see what's going on with it. What you've had problems with.
GONZALO: Sounds like a plan.
HENDLEY: Cool, man. Very cool.
We drill wells in Southeast Asia, we drill wells in East Africa, and hopefully we'll be drilling wells here in the Amazon. The aquifer is not quite as deep and also the soil is very soft and not very rocky, so hopefully we'll be able to do a lot more with a lot less.
The machine that we got is fairly stout. It's just completely a rotary machine, which is fine for what we're using it for.
GONZALO: OK. Good to go. OK. Go. I love that sound. OK.
HENDLEY: It was definitely a relief to actually get that engine running. He told me about a couple of small issues that we may deal with, but I think that we will be able to start drilling a well with it.
The game plan for tomorrow is to hop on a boat and head on out to the village. This is country number 16, sweet 16 for Wine to Water, if we can get that well in the ground.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HENDLEY: Right when you get out of Leticia, just a little bit, it definitely feels like you are absolutely in the middle of nowhere.
Gonzalo and I are heading up the river to a little village called La Milagrosa, which actually translates directly into the miraculous or the miracle.
We've got the Amazon River and all these tributaries that are leading into the Amazon River, so there's water all over the place, but that water is just absolutely filthy, they're bathing, they're washing the dishes. (INAUDIBLE) from the rest room, all right there in the same water source and that's the thing that's causing them to get sick.
GONZALO: Welcome to the Amazon mud.
HENDLEY: So we're going to meet the caraca? That means like the village leader or --
GONZALO: Yes, they elect every four years.
This is Doc Hendley. And this is Luis.
HENDLEY: OK. Very nice to meet you both.
GONZALO: Fifty-seven children.
HENDLEY: OK, great.
We hope to hit water. The people hope we hit water. But we're not sure, so we can't make any promises so all it is right now is just we're going to try our best. This place probably floods pretty good because all the houses are on stilts.
GONZALO: This is the way we have to do it here.
HENDLEY: How much of the year is it under water?
GONZALO: About three or four months.
HENDLEY: Wow. So when that happens, they basically -- the kids, they walk out their door and they have to hop in a canoe to go to school.
GONZALO: Yes. And they go to school --
(CROSSTALK)
HENDLEY: They can't walk to school.
GONZALO: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
Another source of water like when there's no rain, this is a main source of water. For everybody.
HENDLEY: Oh, wow.
GONZALO: The dogs even go there and drink that water.
HENDLEY: It already look pretty nasty to me.
GONZALO: Uh-huh, it's pretty bad.
HENDLEY: The caraca, did she tell you a place that they would like to have the well?
GONZALO: We decided this would be the best place, right there.
HENDLEY: X marks the spot right there. I like it. This is my first time to the Amazon jungle and it's hot. I tell you. And you think about these folks. They probably have to come down to this river a lot because they're in this heat every day and they got to get a lot of water to keep hydrated.
By drilling a well, we're able to hit an aquifer that has access to clean water. And that's going to keep these people from having to boil their water over and over and cutting down more trees. And that water making them sick.
The main challenge right now is we can't even crank up the drill machine until we have a constant flow of water to force in that hole.
GONZALO: Everything OK?
HENDLEY: So this was the end, but this one I couldn't find anything to attach it to. These hoses have to be pretty heavy duty so they probably have to go to the market and buy what used ones they can find. The problem is the connections are all different. It's like a big puzzle. So right now, sometimes it could be four to six hours for them they say just to set up before they can even start drilling.
If we can work together and help work on systems maybe we can shrink that down to an hour or two hours time. They'll also look at equipment. Anything that's not working properly, broken, taken note of that, the engine ran fine, what it sounded like starting up, but once you see it actually working, you don't really know what the potential risks and problems are to that.
We were able to get the water fairly close but we didn't have enough piping to get the water all the way to the machine so we got to have people carrying the water by hand. That's a lot of hard work and the fact that they're willing to do this all day long in this oppressive heat that we got going on here, is showing us that they really want this. They really want this well.
All right, let's get this drill rolling.
When you're digging a well, the two biggest problems that we have is actually reaching that aquifer and the other one is basically the equipment. A drilling rig forces a series of pipes into the ground with a drill bit secured on the end. Water is pumped into the borehole through the pipes so that the sand and the dirt that are loosened by the drill can be forced out of the borehole, creating space to continue drilling. Pipes are added one by one until the aquifer is reached.
GONZALO: Our bit is completely buried.
HENDLEY: When you're changing a pipe over or for a minute you stop forcing water into the hole, that hole can completely collapse on itself. So right now we've got a drill bit and 50 feet of pipe stuck in the ground, it's not at the moment going anywhere. Again, we don't ever make promises because there's no guarantees and this shows that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HENDLEY: Right now we got a drill bit and about 50 feet of pipe stuck in the ground. A place like this, we're right near the edges of a river, so any time you got sandy soil, you have a problem of it collapsing in on itself. We got to try to get it out. If we can't, it stays on the ground.
All right. So let's move some dirt first, get some of the weight off.
GONZALO: (INAUDIBLE)
HENDLEY: I like it. OK. That's good.
GONZALO: OK. Cool.
HENDLEY: Problems happen and they happen quite often. And so you have to figure out how to get around those problems and to keep pushing forward.
Gonzalo had a great idea to take forced water, and slowly, slowly, slowly pound the sand from the top down. So it's almost like re- drilling a smaller hole next to the hole we've already drilled.
GONZALO: We have to have water coming out.
HENDLEY: I have seen wells collapse on themselves. A lot of that is just lack of training. When you switch a pipe, you got to do it quickly, because every second you're not forcing water into the bottom, that's a second that your dirt and sand could be collapsing on to your bit and your pipes.
We got the bit and the pipes free. Hopefully we can work fast and keep the bit moving and the water flowing so it won't happen again.
GONZALO: Go down, go down. We have water. Yes.
HENDLEY: We have now hit the water table. So even though it's pretty late, we got to put the casing in as fast as we can and make sure we keep that hole from collapsing.
The main reason why we have picked this village to work in is because it's basically a community that has the most need right now in this area for clean water.
We were able to get water to come out of the well, now we've got it falling out of the sky. This is definitely been a success.
The journey here in Colombia has been absolutely awesome. I believe we do have a new really strong partnership with Gonzalo and Agua y Vida here in Colombia now. I think what the true meaning of life is trying to figure out how to not just serve yourself all the time but figure out how to serve others, how to serve your family, how to serve your community and also people around the world.
In the end, for me, I definitely want to be able to provide as much clean water for as many people as I can around the world. But at the same time, I hope that I'm able to inspire people that are afraid to take that first step of something they've really wanted to do, but maybe they don't feel like they have what it takes.
You can be an everyday individual and you really truly can change the world.
All right, now what next?
For more information and donations, please go to www.winetowater.org.
AMBER: Here's a good spot.
HENDLEY: OK, come here, Justice. Reel, reel, reel.
AMBER: All right.
HENDLEY: OK. All right. That's good. That's good. This is a monster. Want to pet it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HENDLEY: OK, we got to let him back quick, though.
