Time of Suffering

Walking up the hill from the pit latrine there is a certain night code: you don’t greet. I break the code and greet the students on the stairway, because at night, you are still you, and you are still responsible for what you do and where you are. This belief of mine is contrary to the belief that is held here, but as it turns out, lots of my beliefs differ from the local beliefs.

I approach a group of three boys taking a break from the mandatory night “prep” study time. They are discussing the recent drying up of our well. “The time of suffering has begun” one boy says, shaking his head and sighing. I pause on the steps. A heaviness settles on my chest and shoulders. We are now in the dry season, and while we expected it to happen, it was still hard to swallow when the faucets only sputtered and then stopped spouting the life giving water.

I greet the boys by name and then continue up the never ending stairs towards our house. Mollie and Bekah are inside and as we share a cup of tea before bedtime, I share what I overheard.

Our students now fetch water from another local well, further down the hill. I haven’t walked there myself yet, but I plan to. The boys told me that I would manage to reach there easily enough, but returning with a full jerry can would be “a tug of war”. They assured me that I would manage though. I smiled as they told me this, my “power” is returning. I am regaining my strength after April’s drain.

The three of us girls held a pow-wow and decided that while we technically could fetch our own water; this would be an opportunity for some of our neediest students to earn some money. We tried doing the math but gave up, a jerry can holds 20 liters of water- how much does that weigh? We decided that we would pay 1000 shillings for three full jugs- fifty cents. It sounds strange converting it to dollars, everything is shillings in my mind. The going rate is 300 shillings per jug, this rate will last until this closer well runs dry; when it does the next closest well is in another village, and the rate for fetching increases to 500 shillings.

Getting water is not impossible, so it is funny how panicked I felt when I watched the faucets sputter and then hiss. We had a good laugh as Mollie was reading a National Geographic magazine called Adventure. The topic of the issue was “How to Survive Almost Anything”, one article: The West Runs Dry. I am going to type excerpts of the tips for survival here with our comments.

1) Set up cisterns or barrels and use your roof and gutters to harvest rain: we use basins, so, CHECK
2) Knock out the kitchen sink pipe and use a five gallon bucket to collect gray water for garden irrigation: we don’t have plumbing, so, CHECK
3) Keep showers to a minimum and exchange the standard issue toilet for a composing model: again, no plumbing, just basins and washcloths and a hole in the ground, so, CHECK

We will be totally prepared to save the West when we get back stateside. No worries

Yes, the well ran dry, but I refuse the idea that the “time of suffering” has begun. Changing my perspective really helped- now is a time to be able to help some of the kids who need school fees topped up, books, or uniform. Now is a time to teach the value of hard work as they receive good pay for their efforts. Now is a time to learn how to live economically and responsibly with the resources we have been given. Now is the time to have a renewal of our NBA membership. (No Bathing Association, remember?) Now is the time for feeling extra loved each day as we use the face wipes my mom so lovingly sent (cut so they last longer) for washing our faces. A time for everything under the sun…