A Year In The Life of Berega River

The water goddess.

Yet again with the water, I know. I arrived here in January, so it's been almost one year, a lot has happened and I've learned many things. But the thing that's been driven home to me from day one is the effect of insufficient, unsafe water on daily life. It's like having a blackout in the US, when you realize that almost everything you do involves electricity.

I always have maji, and in times when the tanks are dry, I can still buy bottled water and endelea kama kawaida (continue like normal). But I see all around me the effects of maji haitoshi na uchafu for the folks who aren't rich wazungu.

January 20.2011. When it's 

not being used as a river, 

it's a parking lot.

1. Women spend an inordinate amount of time fetching water. Sometimes it must be dug from the ground, and dug deeper and deeper with each passing week. This is hard work, and it keeps them from other things.

February 1, 2011. Not too bad, 

the ladies can just about 

reach in.

2. Farming requires water. Farmers (everyone) could grow fruits and veggies if the water was in sufficient supply, and not so chumvi chumvi (salty). Most plants don't thrive on salty water. Fortunately maize tolerates it, or else there would be no ugali, which is most of what folks eat here. And because of the scarcity of water, there's only one growing season.


3. Everyone wants to be clean, and have clean clothes, dishes, floors... This leaves the women two options, go even farther and dig even deeper for water, or don't bathe, wash clothes etc. So they go farther and dig deeper.

April 3, 2011. After the rains. Still not enough.

April 3, 2011. But enough for the goats.

4. To boil water for the ten minutes needed to kill the parasites et al is time consuming, and requires some type of fuel, either bought or collected. And it's the kids and women who collect. So sometimes folks drink unsafe water, tumbo is a way of life here.

April 3, 2011. But enough for this.

5.Tumbo is Kiswahili for stomach, and usually refers to anything in the area between sternum and groin. So if someone says they have tumbo, it could be almost anything; giardia, malaria, an ulcer, a kidney infection, constipation, or most commonly, diarrhea. Diarrhea in the US isn't such a huge deal, but it is here. A baby with diarrhea can be dead in just a few days. Besides, if you rehydrate a child with unsafe water, how does that help?

April 3 2011. Offshoot of Berega River.
Just damp.

Diarrhea is so much more virulent here, at least it seems so to me. It literally flies out of your rectum, so if you've got a bug, stay home. The pre projection rumble is a two second warning, that's all you get. Besides, it's not like there's public restrooms here, or a convenient McDonalds to pop into. I lied, there are a few public restrooms in the big towns, and they defy description. I'd rather stay home.

September 7, 2011. Farther and deeper

6. Folks just don't drink enough water, clean or not, because there's not enough. So people get kidney/bladder infections. Then there's not enough clean maji to help flush the infection. And around and around we go.

November 6, 2011. Where the cattle drink.

7. Prices go up when you can't buy local, and although I can afford the trip into Morogoro and back to stock up on fruits and vegetables, most folks can't. Kids here are lucky to get a banana every now and then. The food pyramid is a joke. I've seen village kids with a reddish tinge to their hair, which signifies malnutrition.


8. We don't always get to wash before and after activities requiring washing. At meals a woman or a child will go to each person with a bowl and a jug of maji. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Sometimes there's soap, sometimes not. The person with the jug will pour slowly while the the other person washes, before and after meals. It's quaint and lovely to us, but basically no one has running water so this how they do it. In the village there's no water kid on the corners so sometimes by the time I get to wash my hands they're filthy, it's like I've been playing in the dirt. Seems ay my age I should know how to keep clean, but it just t'aint easy, McGee.

9. There are public faucets in the area around the hospital, which serves the hospital workers. And on Monday and Thursday they get turned on, so all the women and kids show up with every available container to stock up. In about two hours the maji is finished. This is all they have for bathing, cooking, cleaning, everything. The upper and lower village fetch or go to the few spigots centrally located to many areas but close to none.

10. A while back I wrote about my personal maji dilemma, when people come to me asking for water. I have ground as well as rain water, as do a few others. I caved. I buckled. I wimped. I can't be a guest here and refuse water. So far I haven't run out. But I think twice about how I use my water. I save my laundry water for flushing, and share it with my neighbor, who uses it to wash floors and flush. I wear my clothes longer than I did in the US. A lot longer.

So I've posted some of the pictures I've taken this year. The History of Maji 2011. Some of these pictures have been posted on previous blogs, but I wanted you to see them in a timeline. And I promise this will be the last water rant, at least for a while.

November 6, 2011. And when it's not being

 used as a river, or a parking lot, 

it's a shortcut to the cattle watering hole.

A wonderful thing happened today. Some teachers from Berega Primary came to the chekechea to see what we've been up to. Folks have been hearing about the school, so I turned the kids loose to show off what they know. They were fabulous. They said their letters and numbers, in and out of order, days of the week, colors, shapes. spoke very well in English, did some math, and identified three digit numbers. That was our grand finale. I wrote numbers like 645, 357, 812 on the board and about half of the kids were able to just reel them off. I was too proud of them.

Remember where we are, and how these kids live. So what may seem puny to you is huge here. These kids are far ahead of other preschool kids, and could jump right into Standard 1 and do just fine. The primary school teachers want us to paint their walls. We might do it, but there's a few problems. The walls are in pretty bad shape, the floors have holes, and there's only a few desks in the rooms. The lack of desks I can deal with, kids can sit on the floor, and do. But the parents refuse to contribute in any way to school maintenance. Also when we went to talk to the Headmaster the teachers lounge was crowded with teachers while the kids were sitting in the classrooms doing nothing. I'm not sure it matters what we do to the walls if no one teaches. There was one teacher who did appear involved with the kids, he was outside yelling at about twenty of them while they knelt in the dirt. Don't know what they did, maybe it was all of them, maybe just one or two, but punishment en masse seems to be kawaida here.

While I was in Mbeya last week, I checked up on Martha and Chris, the girls I've got at Shukrani Int'l College. They're doing great, as well as Waziri, everyone passing. Ninafurahi sana sana.

It's late, my battery is dying, and I need to bathe. When I get to America I'm gonna sit in a tub FULL OF HOT WATER AND HAVE A CUP OF ICED COFFEE. Good to have goals.

Nakupenda