Well, my initial plan was to keep my blog updates short and
consise, if they are too long people will stop reading them. Today however is
going to be almost impossible to sum up in just one small blog post.
We left our hotel early (6am) and travelled around 1 hour to
a local village called Ojalai. Ojolai is a community that has not yet had the benefit
of WaterAid support yet, this trip would give us an insight into the challenges
communities face without WaterAid’s (and other NGO’s) vital work.
Only a few years ago this town was war torn and the women of
the villages raped and many killed, but on this glorious sunny day, you wouldn’t
know that now. There is no power supply, no clean running water and no toilet
facilities. I spent time with a young family, Agunti Agnes, her husband Essau
Paul, and their two one year old twins, Opiya Brian and Acen Robin. Their other
two children were not around, one four year old Obongo Calvin was hiding from
the scary white folk and Apendo Marchelet and 8 year old girl was at school.
Their compound area consists of three huts, one sleeping hut, where all 6 in
the family sleep, one spare room and one kitchen. Their toilet facilities are
in a small hut, and is essentially a hole in the ground.
Every day Aguti Agnes has to carry her baby twins to the
water supply to collect water, the ‘well’ is 400m away and she has to travel
around 6 times a day collecting 20 litres a time. The water is dirty and not
suitable for drinking. During the dry season Aguti will have to travel 2.5 kms
to a bore hole for her water. In this heat, I was struggling and felt awful
drinking fresh bottled water while Aguti and her family are drinking dirty
water.
Myself and two colleagues helped Aguti and Essou go around
their daily chores, repairing the toilet, building hand washing facilities and
cooking lunch. To repair the toilet we had to collect some cow dung, mix it
with water and spread it around the floor of the toilet. After this I was the
ceremonial opener of the toilet, lifting the brick from the hole.
We then helped dig the holes for the handwashing facilities
and washed our hands using it.
For lunch we were having chicken, with no shops near by the
only food is that prepared by the community and therefore, preparing a meal of
chicken involves the slaughter of the chicken. After this rather disturbing
event we went to the kitchen to watch preparations. The kitchen was a mud hut
with a burning fire in the corner which they cook on.
We shared stories of home with the family and photos of
loved ones, the men were particularly fond of the pictures of Barney and Bess,
my two dogs, wishing they could have a dog themselves. It was difficult to get
across that our process of getting food is vastly different from theirs,
everything is packeted and done for us, their style of living is very much self
sufficient.
We helped gather water with the family, a hot journey and
although not desperately for was hard enough in the heat carrying 20 kilos of
water.
As well as sharing their lunch with us we shared our lunch
with them, for them it was their first taste of sausages and sandwiches, it
felt great to be a part of that. When we packed away the rubbish it was amazing
to see how greatful the villagers were with our left behind rubbish, each bit
they will make use of, they thanked us and thanked god for us visiting them.
Seeing how grateful they were for something so simple made me wish I had
brought more things with me to give away.
After a moving and emotional morning, our translators
helping us communicate amazingly, we headed to the school. A beautiful welcome
song and some speeches. The school has 438 pupils and only three pit toilets,
there are 22 disabled pupils at the school and they have no special facilities
to help them use the toilet. It must be particularly hard being a girl as there
is little facility for menstrual hygiene, if a girl is on their period they are
allowed to go home to change. This fact was told to us by a male headteacher,
and it was great to hear him talk open and free about the importance of
menstrual hygiene, something which WaterAid really focused on in their recent ‘to
be a girl’ campaign.
The school is not funded by the government but actually by
the community, it was built and is maintained by the community, who each pay
the teachers wage. Without this school a vital link with education would have
been lost for the 438 pupils here.
The lasting memory of this community is how happy they all
are, they are pretty much self sustaining but are greatful for any support that
they receive. My lasting memory will be when I asked Paul if he had a message
to send back to the UK...his only answer.... Thank you. From a man in a village
where they still have no running water this spoke volumes to me.
So thats it for today, there was so much to convey no blog post will ever do it justice. Tomorrow we will visit a community which has been touched by WaterAids work, we will see the difference it has made to the lives of its villagers.
Thank you Southern Water and WaterAid for giving me the opportunity and the support to share your amazing journey.
Adam
Wow Adam, thanks for sharing your experiences of the first day. It was really interesting. I can imagine how you must have felt drinking bottled water in front of them. Do you think that they have built up a partial immunity to some of the impurities in their local water?
ReplyDeleteRosemary
Well done mate, that was a really interesting read. Keep them coming....
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note how did you manage to keep your white TShirt so clean whilst working with cow dung? And how are you coping without prawn cocktail crisps?
Really good post mate. Sounds moving just reading about it so must be amazing there. Keep up the good work and stay safe.
ReplyDeleteBen