ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE/World, three Stories From a Small Planet.

In Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas won a stunning election victory in January. Now that they hold power, will they temper their extremism in order to govern?

KATE SEELYE, Reporter: What is your strategy to deal with Israel right now?

MAHMOUD ZAHAR, Hamas Foreign Minister: Why we should deal with Israel. Why? Why?

ANNOUNCER: Reporter Kate Seelye interviews the new leaders and explores the challenges they face.

In Poland, an international piano competition.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI, Reporter: Whoever wins this Chopin Olympics will launch a worldwide performing career.

ANNOUNCER: And in South Africa, a new invention makes pumping clean water child's play.

TREVOR FIELD, Social Entrepreneur: As the kids spin here, water's pumped from an underground bore hole, then it goes across to that tap, and you just get cold, clean, fresh drinking water.

Gaza/West Bank: Inside Hamas
Reported by Kate Seelye

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Up against the Mediterranean, its back to Israel, lies Gaza. In biblical times, Gaza was one of the five royal cities of the Philistines, or Sea Peoples. Today it's home to a million-and-a-half Palestinians. Densely populated, this 6-by-25-mile sandbox is encased by walls. To the north, a concrete barrier has been erected by Israel. To the south, a metal divider separates the Gazans from Egypt.

For nearly 40 years, this place was under Israeli occupation. The radical group Hamas was born on these streets. They pioneered the use of suicide attacks here, making martyrs, they say, of a generation of young men.

When Hamas tried their hand at politics earlier this year, they won a surprise victory. I've come to find out if Hamas will lay down their arms and transform themselves now that they're in power.

At the Islamic University, I found young Gazans celebrating Hamas's win by staging a play.

1st ACTOR: [subtitles] Do you have news about the elections?

2nd ACTOR: [subtitles] What's that?

1st ACTOR: [subtitles] Hamas won. They won the 70 seats.

KATE SEELYE: It's the first time an Islamist party has come to power democratically in the Arab world.

3rd ACTOR: [subtitles] We were lords in the resistance, and now we're lords in the government!

KATE SEELYE: But not everyone is pleased. These men from Yassir Arafat's defeated Fatah party are already protesting the new government's failure to pay medical benefits.

Since Hamas's victory, the United States and Europe have cut off aid to what they still label a terrorist group. Israel, which controls all imports and exports, has withheld taxes and closed the border. In the neighborhoods, bread lines are forming. But if necessary, Hamas says, the people can survive on salt and olives.

The new man in charge is Hamas's Ismael Haniyeh. Once a university administrator, he's now the prime minister.

ISHMAEL HANIYA, Palestinian Prime Minister: [subtitles] We hope to establish a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital-

KATE SEELYE: Haniyeh is under pressure from the U.S. and Europe to renounce violence and change his party's charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel.

ISHMAEL HANIYA: [subtitles] -to help alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian man.

KATE SEELYE: Everyone is asking if Hamas will moderate now that they're a ruling party. We tried for weeks to get an interview, but Haniyeh's besieged with requests. We follow him to a meeting of the newly elected Palestinian Parliament.

Mahmoud Zahar is the new foreign minister and one of Hamas's original founders. I asked him if Hamas would reconsider its position toward Israel.

[on camera] Will you revise your charter?

MAHMOUD ZAHAR, Hamas Foreign Minister: Why? To satisfy you? To satisfy you? No. Why?

KATE SEELYE: Isn't it time to put on a new, more pragmatic, realistic face?

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: What is the meaning of "pragmatic"? We suffer too much from the Israeli existence. Also, we have to face the American, in particular, American pressure that aims to strangulate our economy.

KATE SEELYE: Well, let me ask you about this issue of sanctions. I mean, you face the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from potential donors because you refuse to recognize Israel. How will you compensate for this loss? Will Iran cover the loss?

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: We are facing a lot of sanctions, but believe me, the Arab countries are going to help us.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Hamas has long been financed by Arab donors and Iran. Thanks to this support, they've built a network of charities that provide much-needed help to the poor. These widows get a monthly cash subsidy. Many children get a free education- heavy on the Quran and conservative Islamic teachings. Hamas has helped spread and enforce a fundamentalist revival in Gaza. Alcohol has been banned, and more and more women are fully veiled.

A major force here now, Hamas finally swept out Arafat's secular Fatah party. I took a tour of a Gaza neighborhood with Azmi Keshawi, a local journalist and Hamas supporter.

[www.pbs.org: Read the reporter's dispatches]

[on camera] Now, what about this one? Is this a Hamas slogan, as well?

AZMI KESHAWI, Journalist: Yes, this is a Hamas slogan. It says, "Islam is the solution," which is a famous slogan now by Islamists all over the world.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] He tells me even secular Palestinians voted for Hamas, disillusioned with the long-ruling Fatah party.

AZMI KESHAWI: I mean, this is an interesting street. Look, seven Fatah slogans, and all of them says nothing. It says just, "Elect Fatah." But why to elect Fatah? They do not explain.

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] They don't give you any reason.

AZMI KESHAWI: They did not give you any reasons why to elect Fatah.

KATE SEELYE: So really, it was- the vote for Hamas was a protest vote against Fatah.

AZMI KESHAWI: Absolutely.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Many Palestinians were frustrated with Fatah's corruption and mismanagement, which they say robbed them of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid. They're now counting on Hamas to change things.

PALESTINIAN MAN: [subtitles] Hamas needs time. It takes some patience. God willing, in two to three months, things will get better.

KATE SEELYE: For years, this is the image Hamas presented to the outside world, suicide bombers and armed jihadists battling the Israeli occupation through terror and violence. Since the beginning of the last Intifada in September 2000, Hamas has carried out 58 suicide attacks against Israel, killing over 300. In their propaganda, they claim their violent tactics forced the Israelis to finally withdraw from Gaza last September.

Since the election, Hamas's militant wing - known as the Izzedin al Qassam Brigades - has kept out of the spotlight. On this night, though, they've agreed to a meeting. We found them training with wooden rifles. But out on patrol for possible Israeli incursions, their guns are real.

AZMI KESHAWI: This is weapons they are proud to make. It's an anti- a light anti-tank weapon. They called it Yassin. It's like a version of the RPG. And then the famous Qassam rockets.

KATE SEELYE: But if Qassam rockets are famous for anything, it's for their inaccuracy.

[on camera] And where is it made?

QASSAM FIGHTER: It's made in Gaza.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] This display aside, Hamas says they've stopped all rocket attacks and suicide missions, abiding by a self-imposed ceasefire for the past year. Gazans are hoping the ceasefire will hold.

But then artillery shells hit. It's the Israeli Defense Forces, firing in broad daylight, apparently in retaliation.

So it seems two rockets were fired this morning from Gaza into Israel, probably set off by the Al Aqsa Brigades or Islamic Jihad, not a Hamas militia, and the Israelis have been responding. The Israelis' target is not Hamas, but other militant groups, like the Al Aqsa and Islamic Jihad, who operate from here.

[on camera] [subtitles] Is it like this every day?

FARMER: [subtitles] Yes, they fire 8 to 25 shells a day. The children get very scared and shake with fear.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Israel says it will continue shelling until all attacks are stopped. The problem is other rival militant groups. They won't abide by Hamas's ceasefire. This car bombing happened just minutes before we arrived. A leader of Islamic Jihad has been killed.

No one claims responsibility for the assassination. Israel, which is generally quick to take credit for its attacks, says it's not involved. There are rumors that it's the work of Palestinians themselves, but to those marching, it's clear who's to blame.

ISLAMIC JIHAD FIGHTER: [subtitles] The Israeli Army. The Israeli Army.

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] [subtitles] What is your reaction going to be?

ISLAMIC JIHAD FIGHTER: [subtitles] We will target the heart of the Zionist entity, and they'll regret what they've done.

KATE SEELYE: [subtitles] So your war on Israel will keep going?

ISLAMIC JIHAD FIGHTER: [subtitles] God willing, it will.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] This latest wave of violence is creating new pressures on Hamas's leaders, but even someone considered a Hamas moderate simply points to Israel and makes new threats.

AZIZ AL DWEIK, Hamas Speaker of Parliament: I don't think that this kind of ceasefire will continue as long as the Israeli measures will continue as they are right now.

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] Hamas has had a moratorium on suicide bombings for the past year or plus. Might we see an end to this moratorium?

AZIA AL DWEIK: Could be. Could be. I don't think that we have any dignity in front of you or any human being in the world if we submit to slavery and accept occupation.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] We're leaving Gaza, but few Palestinians here have permits to pass through these gates. An hour north is the West Bank, home to more than two million Palestinians. It's a place defined by Israeli walls, checkpoints and roadblocks.

The de facto capital of the West Bank is Ramallah. It's a more cosmopolitan place than Gaza, with a mix of Muslims, Christians and secular Palestinians. Many are worried about the spread of fundamentalism.

HANI KORT, Palestinian Businessman: The people of Ramallah are really concerned with the Hamas government coming into power.

KATE SEELYE: Hani Kort, a businessman, gives us a tour of the city in his Land Rover.

HANI KORT: It's a shock for everybody, especially the people living in the West Bank. Now we are what, part of the Islamic world? OK, what is the pressing agenda of Hamas?

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] Describe Hamas. I mean, how do you see Hamas?

HANI KORT: We have new faces that we've never heard before. The problem is, we don't know them very well. Many sectors of society are starting to feel like we are outsiders. But now you have to be a religious person, a conservative person, and a Muslim, in order to be with Hamas.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Many here used to be part of the old order. I spoke to one of Arafat's most powerful aides, who's still upset about Hamas's victory.

JIBRIL RAJOUB, Former Fatah Official: I don't like it. I did not want it. But this is a democracy.

KATE SEELYE: I asked him why his party lost.

JIBRIL RAJOUB: I think that some of the candidates of Fatah played dirty games against each other. Maybe some of our people wanted to punish Fatah.

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] For what?

JIBRIL RAJOUB: OK, for many reasons. You know, the political vision, the progress in the peace process, living conditions. In addition, too, a lot of rumors about corruption, which is not true.

KATE SEELYE: It's not true?

JIBRIL RAJOUB: Not true, no.

KATE SEELYE: Your own attorney general says $700 million worth of government money was stolen by members of the PA.

JIBRIL RAJOUB: Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. For sure, there is corruption, not in Palestine, everywhere. Everywhere. It's true that we had corruption as any other newborn entity. It's normal.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] He's now out of power, and his party watches Hamas with growing alarm. I went to see the Fatah official who helped broker the historic Oslo peace accords with Israel. Saeb Erekat says Hamas must honor past agreements.

SAEB EREKAT, Former Fatah Peace Negotiator: Hamas is saying, "I'm not going to recognize Israel. I'm not going to negotiate with Israel." If this is what people think will achieve peace and security and stability in this region, forget it. This is a path of enlarging the vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence. I'm asking Hamas to accept the two-state solution and to accept the Arab peace plan. By doing so, they will serve the interests of their people.

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] Palestinians say, "What have more than 10 years of negotiations with the Israelis achieved?"

SAEB EREKAT: I have not wasted a minute of these 10 years of negotiations. This is a unique conflict. This is not the borders between Ecuador and Peru. This is not the borders between Canada and the U.S. This is not the merger of banks. These are the issues of what make Palestinians and Israelis breathe. These are the issues of Jerusalem. These are the issues of God and prophets.

I'm just telling Hamas to put the interests of their people above anything else. The sloganeering for the elections are yesterday. Today is a new reality.

KATE SEELYE: Do you think they're going to moderate their position?

SAEB EREKAT: They will have to change. They have to change. If they don't change, they're out.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] There is growing tension between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas controls the parliament and all the ministries, but Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas is still the president of the Palestinian Authority and can veto all legislation. He says Hamas has to face the facts and talk to Israel.

MAHMOUD ZAHAR, Hamas Foreign Minister: Talking is not our intention. It's a myth. About what we are going to talk? They spent many years talking and talking and talking. Last, they reached to a big zero. Why we should deal with Israel? Why? Why?

KATE SEELYE: [on camera] They're your neighbor.

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: They are not our neighbor. We have alternative neighbors. We have the Egyptian neighbor, Jordanian neighbor. We can cooperate with them. Israel is not our fate.

KATE SEELYE: Will you continue your armed resistance in order to try to achieve your goals?

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: Give me an alternative option. We are not surrendering. We are still powerful enough to resist and to push the Israelis outside.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Some Hamas hard-line leaders are in exile in countries like Syria. Eleven of their members were actually elected to parliament while in Israeli jails.

This is a maximum-security prison in the north of Israel. It's called "The Vault." We were allowed to meet with a few Hamas militants responsible for some deadly attacks. Hussan Baram financed and organized terror operations for Hamas.

HUSSAN BARAM: [subtitles] Jail doesn't change minds. This is my sixth time in prison. Our convictions remain the same. Twenty or thirty years does not change anything.

KATE SEELYE: Fathi Katib is serving 29 life sentences for driving a suicide bomber to a hotel in an Israeli resort town, killing 30. He's unrepentant.

[on camera] Do you have any regrets about the operation?

FATHI KATIB: [subtitles] I regret the blood that was shed by the Palestinian people. As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance. Once the occupation is over, resistance will stop.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] Listening to the hardliners, there seems little room for negotiation. But Hamas's Aziz al Dweik says they will deal with Israel- on their terms.

AZIZ AL DWEIK, Hamas Speaker of Parliament: We've said that, in frank terms, we are ready to give a hudna, which is less than truce, for a long period of time but with very few conditions. One of them is we need full sovereignty over the lands within the 1967 borders. The Israeli settlements are- have been constructed on occupied territory. And also, the Israeli separation wall should be dismantled.

[www.pbs.org: Read the full interview]

KATE SEELYE: For now, the walls continue to be built. The Israelis are defining their own borders, leaving the Palestinians squarely on the other side.

In Gaza, two months after the Hamas victory, the government is running out of money. Civil servants aren't getting their paychecks. And gun battles between Hamas and rival factions are on the rise.

RADIO NEWSCASTER: [subtitles] -an Israeli surveillance aircraft has bombed a car in Al-Shaja'yah-

KATE SEELYE: There is breaking news.

AZMI KESHAWI, Journalist: They had hit a- they had hit a car and it's totally fried. People now are collecting the parts of the bodies.

KATE SEELYE: Two men from Islamic Jihad have been killed, this time by an Israeli Hellfire missile. A dozen bystanders were wounded or killed. With emotions running high, Islamic Jihad supporters call for revenge. For the militants, every death becomes another opportunity to recruit more followers.

CHILDREN: [subtitles] God is great! God is great!

KATE SEELYE: The violence here is no longer aimed just at the Israelis. These are the Palestinian police. It's not clear whether they're loyal to their old bosses in the Fatah party or to the new Hamas government. This is becoming a major issue here as lawlessness grows. The security forces now deal with more and more local militias, who threaten to spiral Gaza into chaos or even civil war.

Hamas now needs to convince the people that they can hold the Palestinian Authority together.

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: We are going to succeed in this government. If not - if not - we are going to tell our sons and grandsons that we did our best, and those responsible for our failure is America and Israel and the international community.

KATE SEELYE: At this public meeting, Zahar the other Hamas leaders lay out their plans to raise money from the Arab League and clean up corruption. They say meetings like these never happened under Fatah. Hamas says they were democratically elected, and if they fail, there will be serious consequences.

MAHMOUD ZAHAR: And that will be a disaster for your interest as a Western people. Not only in Palestine, but in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq and every area, you will be described as a criminal because you are- you will be described as anti-democratic, anti-Islamic and anti-moral principles, represented by Hamas and the support of Hamas.

KATE SEELYE: Hamas itself is now caught in the web of violence it helped create. As night falls, a brigade from Islamic Jihad has turned out to honor the two fighters killed in the Israeli missile attack. The culture of martyrdom runs deep here. This is the father of one of the men just killed.

FATHER: [subtitles] I had five sons. I lost two. After this one was martyred, God gave me another son a year-and-a-half later. May God reward us. Thank God.

KATE SEELYE: Three weeks after we left, the same group, Islamic Jihad, sent a suicide bomber into a food stand in the middle of Tel Aviv. Nine civilians were killed. It was the first bombing in Israel since Hamas took power. The world waited for the official reaction. A few hours later, Hamas issued a statement calling the suicide bombing, "a legitimate act of self-defense."

Leaving Gaza, we approach the Erez crossing. Each night, thousands of men line up in the hopes of getting work in Israel.

[on camera] So why do you put up with this? Why do you stand in line every night?

PALESTINIAN WORKER: [subtitles] I have three young children, and I have a 10-year-old daughter who is diabetic. She needs medicine, medical attention, and clothes. I have to provide for her.

KATE SEELYE: And is there no work in Gaza?

PALESTINIAN WORKER: [subtitles] No work.

KATE SEELYE: [voice-over] With unemployment continuing to soar, the majority of Palestinians here are living on less than $2 a day. And under Hamas, their prospects seem to be getting worse.

ANNOUNCER: Later, an entrepreneur finds a way to provide clean drinking water for the children of South Africa.

But first, in Poland, young prodigies from 19 countries compete in one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world.

Poland: Chopin's Heart
Reporter: Marian Marzynski

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [voice-over] For the first half of my life, I lived in Poland. I spent another half of it in America. After the fall of communism, I have returned here many times, reporting on the emerging Polish democracy. This time, it's not politics that brings me to Warsaw, it is Chopin.

Like every child growing up in Poland, I was raised with this sound. Frederic Chopin is a Polish legend woven into the Polish fabric, not only to its culture, but its history and politics.

Every five years, hundreds of pianists from around the world come to this music hall in Warsaw for the Chopin International Piano Competition. I am in a musical temple. The great Chopin is the highest priest in this temple. Here young pianists aspire to achieve their own priesthood.

When I lived in Poland, many times I have sat in this hall, imagining what it must feel like to be on this stage.

Hisaki Kawamoto, one of 800 who signed up, survived the first round of elimination. She discovered Chopin in Japan. When she plays the "Minute Waltz," she tells me, she sees all the planet's animals dancing.

BEN KIM: And so the tempo of my march comes from two- two different places. First is the beginning- the end of my second movement, which is- [demonstrates]

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: This is Ben Kim, born of Korean parents who moved to New York, where he studies at the Juilliard School of Music. He plays the competition's obligatory sonata, of which one part is known as the Funeral March. It gives me goose bumps.

I ask another pianist to play it for me. Eighteen-year-old Andrei Yaroshinski came from Moscow with his mother.

MOTHER: [subtitles] I have strange feelings about this music. I see the light. At some point, there is no more fear. There is still grief over the departed, but I see that there is light after death.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: In my youth, whenever a Soviet communist leader passed away - and there were many of them - all of Poland was listening to this march for days and days. Chopin wrote it in Paris. When Polish culture was suppressed by the 19th century Russian occupiers, young Chopin was exiled in France, the country of his father. He never returned to Poland.

Every Chopin competition is marked by the commemoration of his death. Chopin died at the age 38 in Paris and was buried there, but his heart was removed from his body and placed here in this Warsaw church.

Although he was half French, the critics say his music comes from his broken Polish heart. One of them tells me that he was too Polish to even speak good French, and that the unique signature of his music is grief. This nostalgia is in everything he wrote, says the critic.

[on camera] [subtitles] A grief over Poland?

STANISLAW DEMBOWSKI, Music Critic: [subtitles] It is a grief of the soul, not a physical one.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [subtitles] So the soul is missing something.

STANISLAW DEMBOWSKI: [subtitles] Yes, something.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [subtitles] A lost love?

STANISLAW DEMBOWSKI: [subtitles] No, he left Poland and misses it.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [subtitles] So it's all about Poland?

STANISLAW DEMBOWSKI: [subtitles] Yes, he loves Poland.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [subtitles] But doesn't he miss a woman he once loved?

STANISLAW DEMBOWSKI: [subtitles] This is possible, but it is too intimate.

ANNOUNCER: I would like to congratulate and send good wishes to those pianists who did not qualify for the second round-

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: [voice-over] After two weeks of competition, the field has been reduced to 32. Whoever wins these Chopin Olympics will launch a worldwide performing career. But how can one decide who plays Chopin better and who plays it worse?

To figure this out, I enlisted an insider, a man whom I saw win this competition 50 years ago. Now he sits among 18 jurors. "The whole idea is to be light, like playing it for the first time," says Adam Harasiewicz, the famous Polish pianist.

ADAM HARASIEWICZ, Juror: [subtitles] It should sound like it is improvised. If Chopin is played academically - like this goes first, this goes second - then Chopin is not alive and his truth will not come out.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: "What if they hit the wrong key?" I ask him. "If someone plays beautifully," he answers, "who cares about a false note?"

Meeting Austrian Ingolf Wunder, one of the stars of the competition, I conclude that you don't have to be Polish to have Chopin's touch. Tomorrow, he will be eliminated from the competition. Harasiewicz will blame his fellow jurors for this overlooking.

"The jurors were being petty," says Adam Harasiewicz, and admits that while listening to his own winning performance from 1955, he found many technical mistakes. "Wunder was criticized for playing his Chopin's Grand Polonaise, too fast," he says. "Indeed, there were some double tones, first going up and becoming forte, and then coming down and sounding pianissimo"

ADAM HARASIEWICZ: [subtitles] -but when he played those notes, it was heavenly. It was like a knife to my heart. He filled me with ecstasy. It enchanted me.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: Harasiewicz hopes that before the competition is over, another Wunder will appear.

Will this be Takashi Yamamoto, who left Japan and moved to Poland to study piano? Chopin is admired in Japan, and the parents who can afford it send their gifted children to Poland for Chopin immersion. Yamamoto's teacher is one of the jurors. But according to the competition rules, he won't be allowed to judge his own student.

One Polish pianist even looks like Chopin. Janusz Olejniczak, who won a prize in one of the previous competitions, is now in the jury. What does he think about this Japanese invasion?

JANUSZ OLEJNICZAK, Juror: [subtitles] Having a tradition of industrial espionage, of making better cars, better pianos, now they dig into Chopin's soul. They used to play like machines, but now they can really move us. They read a lot, listen to our music. They're after our secrets, which we didn't even know existed.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: Twelve pianists made it to the finale of the 15th International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition. Now, before playing one of Chopin's piano concertos, each of them will rehearse with the orchestra. Nine of the twelve come from Asia, one is from Russia and two from Poland.

With such a great cult of Chopin, why in 75 years of the competition have there only been three Polish winners? In my times in Poland, Chopin was political, like everything else in culture, and the rumors were that it was easier for a non-Pole to win. The communist government liked to make the foreign winner its cultural ambassador, to improve Polish standing in the world. But perhaps it is also because Poles are too overwhelmed by the genius of their compatriot and get jitters on the stage.

This year, Rafal Blechacz is Poland's hope. Coming from a small Polish town, he was unknown in Warsaw. I wanted to interview him, but he would disappear after each of the previous rounds, going home for more practice.

[www.pbs.org: Read an interview with the filmmaker]

Next day, the moment of truth will arrive. For the Warsaw's cultural "who's who," the music hall is the place to be. I imagine the emotions of those 12 who were once 800.

Takashi Yamamoto is one of the favorites. His teacher is as nervous as he is.

PIOTR PALECZNY, Juror: [subtitles] I am very satisfied. He is an extraordinary young man- gifted, full of talent and sensitivity.

JOSE FERNANDEZ, Music Critic: Yamamoto's a machine. He's outstanding. The man- if you give him- he's fantastic! He's fantastic! But he still doesn't have the heart, I think. That's my opinion.

MARIAN MARZYNSKI: What kind of sensitivity, I wonder, is behind every pianist's decision to hit the keyboard with a specific force, to apply a specific tempo, to control the quality of this irresistible music that fills me with the emotions of joy and sorrow, love and fear, and makes me contemplate the beauty of the order?

Rafal Blechacz is on the stage. "It is all about inspiration," my man in the jury said, and suddenly it feels like the entire Music Hall is inspired. His concerto in E-minor wins the hearts of the public and the jury, the first Polish winner in 30 years. The new prince of Chopin music will reign for the next five years, until the next competition. And Rafal Blechacz gives his victory concert.

[www.pbs.org: More about the winner]

Among the previous Polish winners, only one stayed in the country. The other two emigrated to the West. But now Poland is part of the democratic Europe, and the world of music is borderless. To this world, Chopin's heart is Poland's special gift.

ANNOUNCER: Finally tonight, a grass roots technology makes pumping water fun.

TREVOR FIELD: If we could put a thousand pumps in each country that's water-stressed, we'd make a monster difference.

South Africa: Play Pump
Reporter: Amy Costello

AMY COSTELLO: [voice-over] In many parts of the world, it is impossible to find clean drinking water, especially here in South Africa, where some five million people have no access to safe water. But one man is trying to do something about it.

TREVOR FIELD, Social Entrepreneur: We're going towards an area called Stinkwater. It's a lovely name. And it's obviously an Afrikaans name. And the reason why it's called Stinkwater is because the water stinks.

AMY COSTELLO: Trevor Field is obsessed with solving South Africa's water problems. He took me to Stinkwater to show me what he's up against. Here people get their water from leaky, contaminated hand pumps. And the work involved is exhausting.

[on camera] How's that feel, Trev?

TREVOR FIELD: Hey, man, you don't need to go to a gym, hey? You can cancel your subscription to Virgin Active. You just do this for a couple of hours a day, and every day.

AMY COSTELLO: [voice-over] Once they've pumped the water, women still have to walk long distances back home, carrying water on their heads or in wheelbarrows. Each container weighs about 40 pounds.

TREVOR FIELD: You try picking one up. Those are full.

AMY COSTELLO: [on camera] Yeah, that's heavy.

TREVOR FIELD: OK. Now put it on your head. Off you go. Now, the amount of time that these women are burning up just collecting water, when they should be in their homes, looking after their kids, teaching the children, just being loving mothers, you know, what women should be doing, not beasts of burden.

Hi, guys.

WOMEN: Hello.

TREVOR FIELD: How are you doing?

AMY COSTELLO: [voice-over] Trevor's an entrepreneur who made his money in the advertising business, and at the age of 42 decided he wanted to give something back. He teamed up with an inventor, and the Roundabout Outdoor Play Pump was born.

[www.pbs.org: More about this social entrepreneur]

TREVOR FIELD: Yeah, so what happens is, as the kids spin here - and it doesn't matter which direction they go, it works in both directions - water is pumped from an underground bull hole, comes across here underground, into this part. And not only can you hear the water going into the pump, you can actually feel that it's getting very cold.

AMY COSTELLO: [on camera] Cold, yeah.

TREVOR FIELD: And then from there, there's an outlet pipe and it goes across to that tap. When you turn it on, you just get cold, clean, fresh drinking water coming out of there.

AMY COSTELLO: [voice-over] The play pump costs only $7,000 to install and can pump up to 400 gallons an hour. Trevor installs most play pumps at schools, where jungle gyms and swing sets are rare. The principal says it's a hit.

PRINCIPAL: First time when they arrive at school in the morning, the first child who comes in goes to the wheel, dumps his book or a book and comes to the wheel until the bell rings. They enjoy playing here. [laughs]

SCHOOLGIRL: I felt so impressed and I appreciated it. Me and my friends were just running. Even though the teacher called us, we didn't listen to him. We just ran to the merry-go-round. There were no toys at school that we could play with, so I thought this merry-go-round, we could play with it and have some fun.

AMY COSTELLO: [on camera] And what?

SCHOOLGIRL: Some fun. [laughs]

AMY COSTELLO: [on camera] It's fun, and the water's better, too.

[on camera] So this used to be your drinking supply?

PATRICIA MAHOLE, Teacher: Yes.

AMY COSTELLO: This is where you drink water from?

PATRICIA MAHOLE: Yes.

AMY COSTELLO: OK. So what do we have here?

[voice-over] Patricia Mahole, a teacher, says for years, they never realized the groundwater here was polluted.

PATRICIA MAHOLE: We thought it was safe. But the kids used to get diarrhea, you see, and vomit, get sick.

AMY COSTELLO: The play pump changed everything by drawing clean water from deep underground.

PATRICIA MAHOLE: We used to stay here for nearly the whole day and night and go to sleep very late, looking at this pump, playing there, looking at the kids when they played there. It was just a nice thing.

AMY COSTELLO: Trevor sells ad space on the water tanks and uses the money for maintenance to keep the play pumps working. And then he had another idea.

[on camera] What is this?

TREVOR FIELD: Oh, this is the Love Life campaign. This is an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. This is a focal point of the community, so my idea was that if we put messages for HIV/AIDS awareness, it should have the same effect on these kids. And we've got to get the message through to them before they become sexually active. That's the way I see it.

AMY COSTELLO: Trevor invited us along as a new play pump was installed in the eastern Cape, in a remote rural village. When we arrived, the taps had been dry for a week. The play pump can transform a place like this, giving enough drinking water for 2,500 people.

And with only seven men and a day's work, the pump was ready to go. And it didn't take long for the kids to show up.

Trevor wants to expand beyond South Africa and bring the play pump to neighboring countries.

TREVOR FIELD: If we could put a thousand pumps in each country that's water-stressed, we'd make a monster difference to rural water supplies.

AMY COSTELLO: The World Bank recognized the play pump as one of the best new grass roots technologies. And these days, Trevor is busy raising the funds to fulfill his dream.

TREVOR FIELD: It's a big operation to put a thousand pumps in any country, but it would make a major difference to the children on the ground. And that's where our passion lies, is to make a difference to the kids, because the kids are the future.

To order FRONTLINE/World Inside Hamas on videocassette or DVD, call PBS Home Video at 1-800-PLAY PBS. [$29.99 plus s&h]

FRONTLINE/World is made possible by:

As a global engineering company, we help our customers use electrical power effectively and increase industrial productivity in a sustainable way. ABB, power and productivity for a better world.

With additional funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

<<back