Monday morning we headed out to the field at last! The first item on our schedule was a Walk4Water with village women. WaterAfrica organizes an annual Walk4Water fundraiser in Lake Oswego so our Travel Team was excited to get an authentic Walk4Water experience! In one of our meetings prior to this scheduled walk our World Vision donor liaison (and trip guide extraordinaire) Musonda stated, “Carrying water on your head is a skill. It’s not something you can just do.” But how hard can it be really? We were about to find out……
After a lengthy drive (represented in the first few seconds of the video) we arrived at Hamagowa Village. This village very recently received a new borehole well. We were warmly welcomed by a relatively small group of villagers. We were happy to hear that many of the villagers were busy at a nearby clinic for a malaria net disbursal. World Vision Staff and the Village Leaders quickly established that the Walk distance from the village to the water source was TOO FAR for us. So we got back into the trucks and drove to a spot about 40-50 yards from the waterhole. We took our empty buckets and walked through the dusty, brittle grass landscape to the water source – scattered with thorns and other entangling snares. (We speak from experience!)
This video includes 30 seconds of bucket-filling. That may feel like a long time to watch, but filling that bucket actually took twice as long – These ladies do this routine 3-5+ Times a Day and walk much much further than we did
It was WORK pulling that full bucket out of the water! Though these Zambian women carry full 42 pound buckets on their heads, we weren’t allowed to carry a full load. Our short walk back to the trucks gave us just a tiny fraction of insight into the lives of the Zambian women. Ask any of us about the experience and we’ll tell you – It was hard. It was heavy. It was awkward. It was work. And none of us can truly imagine spending our lives in this way.
To state the obvious – it’s a terrible way to spend a life. But to further illuminate the gravity of the situation – the water!!!! It’s a shallow hole in the middle of a field. This for drinking. And cooking. And cleaning. The women share this hole with pigs and cattle.
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| Interview with the women of Hamagowa Village (John -World Vision driver and fabulous interpreter on left) |
(if you’re reading this through your email subscription you need to click through to WaterAfrica’s website to watch the video)
