Page 7, November 14, 2009

Today the day started out late and ended early. We are running out of diesel for the car so we had curtailed any more visits to villages. Today’s visit, however, was one for me of sadness and anguish over the conditions I was seeing on one hand and of excitement on the other that there might be hope for some of the people we saw along the way. Following a road that was better than most we had traveled lately (most of the travel yesterday was through the bush following walking trails and dodging cut off trees that were along the path). But today was interesting and as I said sad in some ways.
Like most of the boreholes we had seen in other villages the past few days, there were two that we visited today. One was working and the other had been shut down since April of this year. This makes it so the one village that was four kilometers from the other was dependent on the water from the well that was working. The first well, we were told, since it was early in the morning was servicing the people who lived four hours walk away. As usual, women and children were fighting while the water was being pumped from the well in trickles that I am sure would take ten or 15 minutes to fill a jerry can. I didn’t know at the time that some of the people were there from the other village where the well was not working.
To my surprise along the way, on the side of the road in both villages, water holes were being used by many people where they had dug shallow holes in the sand and were taking water for themselves and animals. I even saw at one of these places a woman bathing in the same water where people were filling their jerry cans.
At the last village we visited, there was a water hole that was quite large and deep. But the water was green. In many places where these water holes existed, I saw signs planted in the water hole that these were water sources where a dangerous worm exists and that the people should not take water from these places.
I should mention that the place where we made the camp and have been staying the last few days is a medical treatment facility funded by foreign agencies and NGO’s that has staff who go out and treat people who have this worm in their bodies. Talking to one of the staff people I learned that over 89% of the people in this area are affected by this worm which is water-borne and enters the blood stream, taking as much as a year to mature, then it begins to exit the body in various places like the mouth, on the arms and legs of its victims. These people who are doing the work are not providing any training for the victims, but only putting up signs and treating the people with medication that kills the worm once it is exiting the body. They were not providing any preventive cures for this infestation.
At one place where I observed a boy filling a jerry can, I had my interpreter ask the boy what he was going to use this yellowish brown water for that he was collecting. He told me that his family was going to drink this water and use if for cooking. I asked why he didn’t go to the borehole that was not too far away, and he said it was too difficult to get water there because so many people were there and there was not much water to be had anyway. I asked the boy if he or his mother would be boiling the water as there is abundant firewood close by, and he said that they did not boil any of the water. I asked my interpreter to tell the boy to boil the water before he drinks it, and he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away with is can. As he was leaving the hole and woman and another young girl entered the pool and started filling their cans. I walked away at that point. When I got back to the car where the fellow who is the director over all the villages we were seeing today was standing (he had been traveling with us), I asked him to meet with me this evening when he has some time—that I wanted to talk to him. I will be seeing if I can discuss with the man an convince him to start a mandatory program that all people who drink this polluted water boil it before they use is. I don’t know how far my request will go, but I am going to give it a try.
There were a few bright spots along the way and later in the day I want to mention. In and around the villages where we met today, I was encouraged to see that water is found close to the surface in these area (it hasn’t been true for most other areas of the community, however). So with water so close to the surface, and sand that will be easy to drill into (if it does not cave bad), we have a good chance that simple shallow wells can be put near these water-bearing basins and we will be able to draw it out for drinking and for the animals. That all remains to be seen, but I think the chances are good that we can pull it off.
Now for the other bright spot. We came back to the resting area in Akop near its school in the shade of a large tree. While I was there sitting under the tree with a crowd of youngsters pushing at me at all sides, I spotted some gourds in the field nearby and decided to see if there was anything I could do with them with my knife. So with the kids tagging along, I found a couple of these gourds that were very dry, cut of the tops of several of them and made the kids some whistles. While I played the whistles to show them how to use the device to make music, the smiles and laughter from them really made my sad day into a nice one. Later on I tried to teach the group a couple of American songs without success, then I got the idea to have them sing one of their own song, which they did with no hesitation. I got it all on video.