A Week Without Water

A few years ago, I read a few articles about the lack of water access around the world.  I then read about a few people that were trying an experience called, A Week Without Water.  I was so excited, being a person that thrives on experiences, this was something I was going to do.  I started a blog and created a plan...but, never implemented the plan.

This week, that plan has been implemented by circumstances far beyond our control.  Today is day 4 without water and there is no end in sight.

The International Villages has an interesting history regarding water.  At first, when we bought the land, there wasn't any water or electricity here.  We put a lot of financial resources into hand digging a well.  That well took over 9 months to dig and is 118 feet deep through some serious rock.  The man, Rono, would go down in a 5 gallon bucket with his tools, carefully dig, fill the bucket and his partner would crank it up.  When it was difficult to breathe, due to the depth, he would put large plants in the bucket with him saying that they would pull oxygen down into the well enough for him to breathe.  Shortly after that was completed, we decided to pipe water from Hopewell High School for use.  This would cost us more money in labor, piping, and water costs but would allow us to retrieve much more water, far quicker.  When the Hopewell borehole had struggles we decided to add pipes to a local water project called Komasai.  This project lasted a few years but has been riddled with problems such as punctures in the piping, pump troubles, and so much more.  This summer a week or so before the Fulton Church group came, Komasai was completely shut down and the IV team scrambled for a solution.  They decided to pump water from a far more dependable borehole SOAR-Kenya Academy.  A few days ago the electricity transformer blew at SOAR-Kenya Academy disabling their borehole.  This borehole not only provides water to the 300 school children at SOAR-Kenya but also over 5000 other people in the area, including those of us at the IV.  While the director of SOAR-Kenya has been doing everything to get Kenya Power to fix the problem, they are not responding.  So, we switched the pipes back over to Komasai to get some water, and that is spotty at best, last night I believe all we received was a few gallons of water.

The need for water is enormous.  At home in the US, it is very easy not to think about because wherever we go there is clean, unlimited access to water.  Water to flush toilets, wash hands, wash clothes, clean the house, cook, and most importantly drink.

It hasn't rained at the IV in three weeks.  The plants are dry, the animals need water, and we are told that it won't likely rain until the end of March and we are told it may delay all of the way to April.

As you know we have a lot of projects here in Kenya, one of which is the raising of trees.  On our land right now a conservative estimate would be about 40,000 trees, most of them small seedlings less than an inch tall.  Each of those baby trees need water, twice a day.  Our shamba, garden, is full of kale, spinach, onions, carrots, and more, those all need water too.

Have you ever walked into a bathroom and realized someone forgot to flush the toilet?  Gross, right?  Well, that is one problem we are having.  Another is that we are all very active here, we are outside 16 hours/day working and playing and without water, there are no showers.  We are now buying bottled water.  For those that have stayed at the IV before we have added a world class Berkey Water Filter which has been saving us enormous money every day...unless there isn't any water to filter.

I have realized that this is starting to sound like whining, but trust me, that is not my purpose.  In fact, my purpose isn't to focus on me/us at all.  This is the life that my friends live here in Barut.  Their access to water is so limited and at times, they are unable to get any at all.  They work/play outside most of the day and many do not have running water at all, they have to fetch it from a water kiosk like the one at the IV.  They don't have flush toilets and many are using holes outside of their house surrounded by broken mud, rusted tin sheets, or a plastic sheet.  This is what they know, this is their normal.

These past few days have shown me the importance of water.  And is calling me to help a few of my neighbors have better access to it...once it returns.