Celebration!

Back to Project Visits. :) 

I can talk much faster than most people can read (with interest). I use that to my advantage. :) But blogs are different. :) I’d written about 5 different blog posts with half constructed thoughts that didn’t quite flow into nice packaged stories. So I might, for this one, kinda just let the story tell itself. And more a bit later. 

Celebration. :) That was the banner over my first day of visits. As you might have seen a bit from my blog that night, it was a happy visit. This community that had gifted me with a traditional dress owed me, Rainbow, personally, nothing. But it was a day of celebration – smiles, thanks, gratitude, joy and celebration of all of those shared – with this “visitor” from Canada who represented all that made what was once only an airy dream possible: they had just completed the construction of a gravity-fed capped-mountain-spring clean water supply project a month ago in December. 9km of pipe, built by their very own hands and labour of love, funded by HOPE International Development Agency... which in turn was funded through the compassion and generosity of people like ourselves.

It was beautiful, that land of Chinanton. 

It was also a friggin desert. That pushed 50 degrees Celsius in the hottest months of the year. 

 

In a dry and weary land where there is no water... 

... *~CELEBRATION~* indeed!!

Each of the 213 families in the community each has access to a supply of clean, unpolluted, non-waterborne disease-filled water, flowing fresh from a tap, right in their own homes.

Until one month ago, it wasn't this way.

Each and every morning, they (especially the women) woke up, every day, at 4:00 in the morning, for one sole purpose: to find water. They had, more or less, two options. They could walk down to the river. The river was about 25 minutes or so in our truck. 

That’d be a 2-3 hour walk, each way. But guaranteed. Or they could walk a shorter distance to various natural “posits” of water in the desert. I don’t know much about deserts, but apparently, there are small water source holes, that fill up with water in the night. However, the flow from these sources can be so little, especially in the dry season, that long queues form for the precious water... and women sometimes return home with empty containers after a 4 hour journey/wait.  

Little posits of water in the desert. Is that what an oasis is? I think my mind has been awash in advertising that makes me picture a sparkling pool under the shade of a palm tree with a decorative piña colada in hand.

A few of the women in the community shared with me, and with each other, what life was like just a short month ago.

“We suffered to get water”. I’ll bet.

“Without water, we can’t have hygiene. We can’t prepare food”. No.

“No one can live without a cup of water every day”. True that. 

“Now, we have water in our homes. For this we are so very thankful. Thank you to the brothers and sisters who have helped us. Thank you to HOPE. Thank you to Canada”. 

I am thankful too. I can’t comprehend, really. But I am still so, so thankful. And the thanks are ours to them as well. I spoke for me “for Canada”. But I hope, actually, that it would become true for more of us. Maybe one day all of “Canada” would speak it in unison. Their joy was my joy. And it is a joy and a privilege to have this invitation and opportunity to share life together in this way. Our lives are infinitely richer and more abundant for it. And "both" our worlds are that much more beautiful.
 

One little thing one of the women said struck a funny cord, though I didn’t know why at the time. “Nothing grows without water. People die in the desert for lack of food.” Even a city girl can grasp the farmer’s intuition of that. I’d nodded, a pit-wrenching understanding the harsh physical reality and a deep appreciation of the new, different reality ahead. Incomprehensible for me, really, what that reality is like, but also not exactly the first time I’d heard the connection between access to water and agriculture for food. What makes development “development” is that it gets the ball rolling. “Sustainable development” doesn’t just mean  “how do we make sure that things can stay in the new state or level goodness?” but rather “how does goodness keep adding onto itself, more and more, fuller and fuller, deeper and deeper, more and more beautiful?”

And that’s what makes water so precious – it flows into and waters so much of development. Agriculture and food security, maybe most intuitively, but also heath, sanitation, gender equality, education especially for girls, (non)migration, peace, human rights, income generation, and nearly every development issue a community faces. And in and through all of those – HOPE (capitalized for emphasis, not for the organization, though that works too :)). 

Anyhow. I diverge. 

The funny cord. “People die in the desert for lack of food”. I picture the desert as the backdrop for a journey. Like a 40 day journey into the desert. Or riding through the desert on a camel’s back. But it is temporary, it is in passing, it is where people move through. Caught with lack of food in the desert, in my mind, would paint a picture of someone running out of food rations because they were inadequately prepared for the journey.

It was such a beautiful, happy, celebratory day, I never stopped to ask, “Why do these people live in the desert??”

The answer would become starkly clear the next day.

And maybe hopefully more so in the next couple posts. 

For now, a few more pictures.

Some of the roads en route to the village of Chinanton

At one point, we shared a skinny road with a horse that couldn't find its way off to the side of the road - it galloped ahead of us for a good 5 or 10 minutes.

The community meeting. I asked if any kids wanted to share anything too, after the men and women all had finished. They all shyly declined. But they were cute. :)

More celebratory meet and greet with the members of the community

So many colours. :)

Less hours spent in search for water means more time for productive activities... like mat-weaving!

They gifted me with one too... unfortunately, I just couldn't get it home (my bags and hands were already more than full getting to the next town). 

My new favourite necklace. I had noticed that all the women were wearing yellow necklaces and told them that they were pretty. They soon found me one too. :)

Lunch with the staff & some of the community leaders

Jose, the in-house technical expert & designer, showing me the technical sketch of the water system

Me with the (incredibly awesome) Water Team staff - Miguel (Health educator), Virginia (Health educator), Jorge (Director), and Jose (Technical expert/designer)