Ten-year-old Michel lives with her grandparents in Honduras. One of their greatest challenges is finding clean water to drink. Their main source of water is a small pool that collects runoff from the mountain.

Maria, Michel’s grandmother, explained their system: “To store water, we dug a hole in the dirt on the side of the hill. Then we put rocks around it and connected a hose that carries water down the hill to our houses.”

“We have to clean the pit all the time,” Michel told us. “There are lots of leaves, dirt and even animals that fall into the water.”

When dry season hits, the water in the hole dries up and becomes even more dangerous.

“The water is always dirty,” Maria said. “It has a bad smell. We suffer a lot from drinking it, even though we strain it and sometimes boil it.

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