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!
