Still Here!

I’m still here! Although I haven’t added to this blog for quite a while – not that anyone will really care but it is as much for my own recreation as informing whoever reads the stories. I do have a lot more to add and will get there. I have started editing some of the blogs – poor grammar and spelling needs fixing!

I’ve been side-tracked for over a year writing for the now defunct Readwave. Some of the stories I have added to my Stories Blog, but I have more there to do as well.

Also I’m up to only day 494 of my seven year diary, [which I’m not posting] so while I haven’t added anything here, I’ve been busy enough.

Something happened that made me want to add to this blog.

It is so easy for people in first world countries to turn a tap and there is water. The thing though with abundance, there is usually waste.

I have been on (nagging) about this before. Water is not wasted, even if you tip it down the drain, it finds its way into the water cycle and is recycled.

Micro-droplets within the glass or bottle of water you drink today have passed through the body of Cleopatra! Now there’s a thought!

Chota Maji – Fetching Water

These days people go the gym for exercise, which is a good thing. Probably not enough people go, but for those who do it is good for their health and a way of keeping fit. It is not all that safe to jog along the road any more. There are those who want a magazine type body; six pack abs and firm, round butts.

But to some recreational exercise is unfathomable stupidity.

Upendo and her siblings used to collect water from the tap at our house, but the vagaries of the water supply meant that very often she had to go down to the stream, which was below our house.

The stream starts right there as a spring of clean fresh water that flows out of a bank with a normal flow of perhaps a bucket per second – ok, twenty litres per second.  [Hidden is an overdose of natural fluoride, but that’s another story]

It therefore takes but a second to fill a twenty litre bucket. That done the plastic lid is put on, but not all can afford a lid, so vegetation is put on top of the water to help prevent spillage.

A full twenty litre bucket of water weighs twenty kilogrammes – that’s the allowable weight of your airline bag.

So the next step is to lift it onto her head. Helping a person lift a bucket up onto a head is called twisha, but I have noticed that not many people help each other like that – it is probably a pride thing not needing to ask, because if you do ask, help will never be denied.

Once the bucket is on the head, it is a steep climb out of the stream bed and up to the flat area of the track. There are 105 difficult step to take. Footwear is sandals, malapa, jandals, thongs or whatever you know them by.  No tramper or bushwalker would countenance such footwear! Always the track is slippery because of spilt water.

Once the flatter track is reached, there are thirty metres of flat easy walking before the climb up a steepish, stony, clay road – this is a one hundred metre climb.

The road continues but off it is the track to Upendo’s house. This narrow track climbs very steeply for thirty odd metres, no steps, just making way among small rocky outcrops. Once up the steep part, there are another eighty metres of moderate slope but easier walking to negotiate. The five steps up to the house must be a final hurdle.

Don’t forget this tortuous walk is done with a straight back and twenty litres of water on her head. How much water do you use? Africans can do a lot with a litre of water.

Upendo doing squats? Not likely!