Thirsty? Turn on the tap. Hot? Grab an ice cube. Dirty? Hop in the shower. Water is everywhere. It’s easy to get, right?

That is not true in some places. Clean water can be hard to find in Myanmar. Myanmar is an Asian country located between India and China.

Myanmar is a growing country. More and more people need clean water. Some big cities in Myanmar have running water. Pipes take clean water to the people’s houses. But in the small villages, water comes from reservoirs. Reservoirs are like small lakes or ponds where water is collected and stored during the rainy season.

Sometimes during Myanmar’s dry season there is not enough clean water. “It wasn’t always this way,” says one villager. “There was enough water for all of us.”

To get the water they need every day, men, women, and children walk to the reservoir. Sometimes they walk several miles. Then they wait in long lines of people for their turns filling their plastic buckets with water. Villagers pay about 10 cents for each bucket of water.

After all that walking and waiting, the really hard work begins—carrying the dripping, heavy buckets of water home. Imagine if every bit of water you used each day had to be carried this way. You wouldn’t want to spill even a drop! Thirsty villagers hope that water pipes will carry the water for them in the future, just like in Myanmar’s big cities.