Day 3 - onto May Ayni and Adiger for the afternoon

Posted by Sadie -

Back in the car and onto the next place – where a gravity flow system had been in place for a couple of years. EOC told us a bit more about the technology and the pipeline, then we walked down to the village water point and all the villagers were lined up ready to greet us. Already the differences were notable from the last place – these people just looked happy. At first I couldn’t see the women because they were sat in a line behind the men. So as not to cause offence, Serge talked to the men and Rona and I sat with the women and children.

We talked to some fascinating people here, before the water supply they had to walk up to 1 hr each way, twice a day. Now it’s only 5 to 15 minutes away. 3 of the girls had babies – they carry them in intricately embellished leather rucksacks and they all had cute little hats to keep the sun off their heads. (The ladies offered to make hats and carriers for me and Rona if we came back in a year with a baby - hmmm!!) What really stood out for me when talking to these women was how clean and healthy they looked. They explained that when they had to walk for an hour each way to fetch water, they could only carry a certain amount so it had to be prioritised. Things like washing themselves and their clothes therefore weren’t performed very regularly. The children weren’t washed regularly, causing skin problems and something which we hadn’t thought of – they weren’t confident at school. But now they can use water for whatever they need, because it’s so near to home. They even told us that sometimes they put their pans on to heat up, and then go and fetch the water in the meantime.

The water point here was watched over by a guard, paid in the excess water. He had dug a little trough going from the bottom of the water point to catch this and channelled it into his garden. Serge and I helped out with some weeding . It’s amazing how much can be achieved just by starting with clean and accessible water.

In the heart of the village we saw another ladies kitchen garden . Prior to the water, she had to wait for the rains to water her plants and had only grown enough for her family to survive. I’ve never thought about the actual meaning of subsistence farming before. Again I was struck at how a life can be turned around just by the simple fact of having access to water. It was market day and the lady had missed out on taking her excess supplies to sell this week as we were there, so we bought some vegetables from her to make up for it.

Lunch and our first proper coffee ceremony performed by Brun, the local Junior Hygiene Promoter. We interviewed her afterwards and she was excellent. At 22 she wasn’t married yet (quite unusual in comparison to a lot of other women we’ve met here), but wanted to get married and have children only when she’d made a better life for them.

Final project of the day and we’re all flagging a bit by this stage. We walked up into the mountains to this amazing village which was like a little oasis in a sea of dryness. The first lady we met was really scared of our cameras, until we showed her a photo we’d just taken of her little boy on the screen. Then she couldn’t get enough of the camera and wanted to be in every shot! They had had a gravity flow scheme in place for a year too – and had been very innovative with their excess water. The run-off from the cattle drinking tough was captured in a night storage pond and let out to run down a gulley and over a dried up riverbed by an aqueduct made from a hollowed out log. Again this was used for the garden. This village also had a trial bio-gas system which we were shown after interviewing 2 ladies from the water committee. I felt really uplifted here – it’s fascinating to see how nothing is wasted – not even their own waste! Again it emphasised how vital water is for the start of everything else and how it enables people to step out of poverty into a better life for themselves and their children.

Finally we did an interview for Mark with the most spectacular backdrop ever. I got emotional again when talking about the children at the start of the day, but I was really happy to see the amazing benefits by the end. In a way I’m relieved we saw the unprotected source first, because it made me appreciate how different it now is for the communities with access to safe water. What an emotional rollercoaster of a day.