Mail Call: An Article of Faith?

I was in Beijing recently and was delighted to see more men and fewer machines at work—something unthinkable in the West—building formidable structures. I stayed there for five full days but did not experience the eye-stinging air pollution you mentioned. To think that the Western model is the only model for development is naive and wrong. The West must acknowledge that the Eastern model of economic ascendancy and development can be different. To suggest that China is giving a face-lift to Beijing only because of Olympics 2008 is also not totally correct. The whole of China—now the world's third largest trading country, after the United States and Germany—is changing, thanks to the economic boom. Every sixth person in the world used to be Chinese. Now they say every sixth consumer product sold in the world is Chinese. Is there any country that does not buy/use Chinese products? Today the world economy needs China, rather than the other way around.

S. Ganesan

Hyderabad, India

Fighting for Water

Thanks for focusing on the global issues of water scarcity, contamination and mismanagement in "Troubled Waters" (June 11). Obtaining water for consumption and sanitation is the main daily concern of millions of people in the developing world. To achieve access to safe drinking water, we must work with governments and NGOs. But I'm disappointed you did not mention Latin America's great need for clean water. In El Salvador, 70 percent of the rural population has no access to potable water. In "my" village, El Amatón, water from the single public faucet is rationed. In the dry season, each family receives as little as seven gallons a day. For drinking water, women and children travel an hour down a steep bluff to shallow springs; for washing, people must travel two hours to a river contaminated with sewage. This causes other problems: infant mortality, diarrhea, parasitism, low school attendance and productivity (due to morbidity and the long hours spent procuring water). The community here is working to solve this problem. We now have plans for a solar-powered system to pump water from a recently drilled well, and a bio-sand filters project to purify water. But financial support is difficult to find—since 2004, USAID has refused to fund water and sanitation infrastructure in Latin America.

Megan M. Gregory