That may seem absurd to you, but I've seen it happen. Laos is a country of great rivers and abundant monsoon rains. Yet farmers can watch their crops shrivel for lack of water in the growing season.
Women trek through the night to get a meagre jar full of stagnant, muddy drinking water.
Imagine living in Tuk Luk, a remote poor village in Laos which I could only reach by walking along a narrow track, after wading across a river. Until last year, women walked three hours each way in the hot nights of the dry season to collect water from a soak where buffalo also wallowed. People might go weeks without washing, creating disease and skin sores. The good news is that it's not hard to change. With help from Community Aid Abroad, two wells have been drilled in Tuk Luk.