Page 6, November 13, 2009

Today was one of those interesting and in many ways sad days of seeing hardship over and over again and knowing that I nor anyone else is capable of providing much help to those who need it. I saw many examples of people who were walking over 8 hours a day to find water for themselves and their animals, and then after all that walking and giving their animals a drink, they were restricted to one jerry can of water to take home for the day. Then on top of all that, the women who came for this water were constantly fighting with other women over who was to fill the jerry can first.
I also saw several examples of pumps that were not working because of lack of parts. In one case two young men were at this location where there was a broken pump. They had all the tools needed to repair the pump, but were missing some parts (pipe and a pipe threader) that were not available anywhere in any of the surrounding communities of this county. They were hopelessly disassembling the pump when I was there, but neither of the young men were optimistic that when they got through that they would have a pump that worked.
In another case, I was walking through a sorghum field when I cam across a pump that looked new. I was the same construction I had seen elsewhere with the nice cement drain basin and an animal watering trough on the end. But the pump had no handle. I asked a homeowner who lived near this pump and he said the pump had been that way for over a year and no one had the parts to fix it.
We did have one amusing moment during our travels through the countryside where no roads existed and we had simply the walking trails to follow. Everything was going along nicely. We had the Community Leader (like a mayor) of the village with us and another fellow who was called the Chief. Both were in the back seat. Then on the trail a middle age man who looked okay was standing on the trail waving a sprig off some local plant. To all of us, I am sure it looked like he wanted to talk to us for some reason. So he stood fast in the middle of the trail at a point where it was impossible to pass him, and the driver had to stop his car to keep from hitting the man. The man just stared at us for a few seconds, then he walked forward the few steps left between our car and himself, and grabbed the front brush guard, hoisted himself nimbly up on the hood of the car then walked on to the roof and stood there stamping his feet on the now sinking to p of the car. The Chief and the Community Leader immediately got out of the car and started negotiating with the man, but he wouldn’t move. Then one of the other fellows who was with us had a package of Kleenex with him and waved it to the man as if to give him. For two or three minutes the three men tried to persuade the man to get down, but he wouldn’t budge, but he did keep on stamping his feet on the top of the car. I wanted in the worst way to get out and film the incident but didn’t dare as I thought the entire drama might have been about the white man that was in the car, so I stayed put. Finally the man jumped to the ground, got to his feet and looked like he was going to attack the car from the rear, but the Chief shouted at the driver to gun it and get out of the man’s way, so he did, spinning dirt and dust in the man’s face as he plowed off down the trail. The man didn’t attempt to follow us more than a few steps, so the Chief and the Community Leader ran on to catch us and the drama was over about a fast as it started.

This has been a tiring day though we didn’t do much but ride in the car and take a long walk this evening around the community. But because of this blistering heat, I have felt sluggish, I was not hungry at all for the dinner that was prepared for us, and for that matter the lunch either, so here I am sitting in my tent on the computer remembering the day’s events and attempting to make a blog out of them. And that pretty much sums up the day for me.