Amputee Touch Ty (left), who lost his lower left leg after stepping on an unmarked antipersonnel ...

Amputee Touch Ty (left), who lost his lower left leg after stepping on an unmarked antipersonnel mine, and his wife Houn Yean, are the fastest workers at a dam building project which has pooled the resources of sixty families from three villages in the Maung Russey district of Battambang Province and is funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and managed by Australian Catholic Relief (ACR) worker Peter Kelly. As Touch Ty digs, Houn Yean carries the spoil from the excavation in two rattan baskets which she carries over her shoulders like a yoke. Paid 1900 riel (approximately 75 cents) for every cubic metre they remove, they and the other families compete to move the most earth every day. The dry season transforms Cambodia from a lush and waterlogged to a dry and dusty country where water resources are scarce, and the addition of a dam to any district's resources can transform its agricultural capabilities.