dihydrogen oxide

ie. water

The great necessity of life.  I think we are all aware of how lucky we are in Canada to have so much of the resource at our fingertips, so I won’t play the ‘holier than thou’ card. However, I can’t help but notice the striking difference in accessibility to water between the developed and developing world. There is no running water, all water for drinking, cooking, washing etc… is fetched from a borehole located about 200 metres away from the compound. Even with a borehole so close, my awareness of how much water I use has increased dramatically.  A typical showerhead uses between 40 – 50 litres for a ten minute shower (i think), a comfortable bucket shower here uses about five litres of water.

Therefore, still thinking about water accessibility this community is lucky to have a sanitary source of water so close by. Many aren’t so lucky – they either use surface water, or walk great distances to fetch water.   Imagine the difference between a village with an accessible borehole and a village using surface water or spending most of their day fetching.  How much time has been saved with one activity?  How can that time be better spent? Maybe she has time to go to school? Maybe she has more time to spend in the fields, making sure the harvest is good? Maybe she can start her own business and generate some income?  Send her children to school? Pay hospital fees?  

Asking myself these questions, it becomes obvious how lucky we are with our sophisticated water distribution and sewage system.  We are able to follow so many pursuits because our basic needs have been met.  However, Our system has its own problems.  We are facing massive water shortages due to overconsumption and a lack of awareness.  So how do we take the best of both systems? Develop more efficient shower heads/ washing machines etc?  Do we start metering water consumption?  Launch awareness campaigns?  Or should we just ban Coca-cola products?  Any thoughts?

A few pictures from my first water fetching expedition:

Here I am pumping water at the borehole which is located about 200 metres away from the compound.  This borehole was NOT donated by an NGO, rather it was a community effort that had it installed. The result?  Clean water and a borehole that people use and is still in good condition

I wanted to learn to carry water the African way. I haven’t quite mastered the delicate balancing technique…but I have confidence that by the end of the rainy season (summer) it will be ‘old hat.’ 

The borehole is quite the social hangout meaning my integration attempt got lots of laughs from onlookers.  Everyone had tips, words of encouragement, or were just enjoying the spectacle. As a side note, most of the women carry basins of water that are at least three times the size of my little green bucket.  They will also make three or four trips to and from the borehole to gather enough water for the day’s activities.