After my near arrest in Malawi and the recent violence during Malawi’s anti-government protests, the weeks that have followed have been relatively peaceful in this corner of Zambia.
Today, I’ve been busy at the office trying to work on one of my final projects which is a garden rehabilitation project for my organisation’s Women’s group. The plan is to repair the borehole so that my colleagues can irrigate the garden for the women to grow vegetables for sale and therefore earn a better living.
A borehole is a deep well in the ground which allows people to have access to water through a manual or motor pump. It’s a common feature in rural landscapes across Africa and even in towns where sometimes people do not have money to access water from a tap. The borehole at my office has not been working since 1994 as the pump has silted over meaning that there is limited access to water at my organisation.
There is an outside tap that is connected to the town water supply, however typically, it often experiences water cuts especially during the current dry season. This means the staff households and neighbouring community often spend most of the day fetching water from far away streams and rivers – the work of women and children unsurprisingly!
It’s an amazing sight coming into work seeing a 5 year old child carry a full bucket of water on their head without spilling a drop. When I spoke to one of the women in the village, she said the happiest day of her life was to walk 2 minutes across her house, fill up her bucket from the borehole and then start with the cooking only 10 minutes later. She said it meant she actually had time to do other work such as running her small business and looking after her children, which was far from the days of spending hours traveling 10km away to fetch water on her head.
The daily burdens of a modern African life mean that women like the one I met in the village have to rely on a reliable water source. Unlike the old days when life was a lot more simple, it seems that getting water and getting water quickly, go hand in hand with the demands of modern living whether that’s in town or in the village.
I hadn’t realised how important access to water was. Even when I was back in London working on glossy marketing campaigns for the development organisation WaterAid, the reality of no water hadn’t really affected me. How could it? I went home every day to a nice shower and a flushing toilet. The world of boreholes and hand pumps seemed a strange foreign world to me, despite the fact that I actually worked in the charity sector! How little did I know about what it means to have no water.
There hasn’t been any water at work now for 5 days and I’m not experienced enough to fetch water on my head, but if it carries on like this I may have to! In the meantime, I’m writing a funding proposal to source funds to improve our irrigation systems which we so desperately need. It means the women will be able to grow vegetables all year round and not just in the rainy season. It will also mean that the income from the garden will contribute to the women’s household bills. Food, school fees for the children, health and medical expenses.
Hopefully it will also mean that I can flush the loo!
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