Now this may come as somewhat of a surprise to some of you (although not if you know me well), but I’M NOT HANDY. I should have been a Luddite (some people suggest that I am) because anything that is mechanical or technical is beyond my purview. In fact, I am allergic to tools. Well-meaning folks say: “Just find a Youtube video and it will show you exactly how to do it.” I have looked at a lot of videos but for some strange reason the solutions never work for me, even if I follow the simplest of instructions assiduously. But I think there’s more to it than that – mechanical/technical things are out to get me. For example, out on the research vessel in July counting seabirds, the voice-activated recording system, after 328 successful 5-minute inputs, suddenly stopped recognizing my voice for no discernible reason! Just like that…..and I had another 1500 or so inputs to go! (Interestingly after that, in a playful sort of way, I was able to get it to record “Sei Whale” just by sniffing my nose.)

And here’s another example: at our cabin on Grand Manan we have a dug well and water is supplied to the cabin via a simple pump system. The system was old and suffered some damage during the very cold Winter and, so, sprung a leak, burning out the pump. So….new water line, new pump – all installed by a plumber – and everything is hunky-dory….right? After sailing along for 7 aqueous days, two days ago the pump starts coming on every 5 minutes. Couldn’t find any leak so I unplugged the pump. Wham! The pump loses its prime. OK….I try to reprime the thing and here I come across traces of that insidious, subversive plot: the instructions on the pump tell me to “fully close the control valve”; the instructions in the manual that came with the pump say “fully open the control valve”. In the end it didn’t matter: neither way worked. I’m currently waiting for the plumber…..

When you don’t have water running on an automatic basis whenever you want it (as most Canadians have), then water takes on a whole new dimension. Clean, safe drinking water we can buy cheaply here I Grand Manan in large jugs at the Save Easy (and carry it home in the car); water for everything else we draw from the well, 10 meters away, by dropping down a bucket on a rope (the rope, my friends, is essential). So the toilet can be flushed, water heated for dishes and washing. Showers are a little more problematic. Yesterday, after a long cycle on the hottest day of the year, Marg seemed to take great relish in slowly dribbling water over my head as I soaped down in the backyard. (It took 3 liters to do the job.) So water is readily available, just damned inconvenient. And when you have to get it manually, you’re VERY conscious of how much you’re using and for what.

But like I say, here it’s still readily available. What a different story in rural western Kenya! Matangwe isn’t a village in the sense that there’s a cluster of dwellings close together. Instead, houses are spread out over the countryside; they may be 100 meters apart or 500 meters. Matangwe is the general area made up by this sprawl. For the residents, the sources of water – for drinking, cooking, washing/cleaning, watering plants – are ponds, large and small, that are replenished (most of the time) by the cyclical rains. Most of the people draw their water from two main ponds, each about 100 meters in diameter. Depth is about the distance up to a Grey Heron’s (like our Great Blue Heron) belly. But sometimes, not long after the rains, folks will use water from small “ponds” that to me look to be no more than mud puddles.


Keeping one’s home supplied with water is an onerous daily chore that largely falls on the shoulders (or, more rightly, on the heads) of the women. Some will send their children to fetch the water; and some, if they have a few extra shillings to spare, which isn’t often, will pay a man who, with his donkey-drawn wagon, draws yellow plastic jerrycans of water for sale at a modest price (I think it was 10 Ksh per container). But most women draw their own water. And in typical style they turn it into an opportunity to socialize, often walking together. I’m sure it helps take the sting out of the tedium. I did a small poll of the women in the area and found that they spend 3-4 hours per day just getting water. Some will walk over a kilometer to get to the pond! (No wonder they use mud puddles when they’re available.) And the big yellow jerrycans weigh well over 50 pounds when full.

Theoretically…theoretically…the water from the ponds is first left to settle. Then a chemical is added to cause the sediments to sink to the bottom. Water for drinking will be treated with a disinfectant (like a few drops of bleach). Quite often these steps are skipped. I’ve watched women and children drink directly out of the ponds (and mud puddles). When this is the case I would wonder how infested they become with water-borne parasites – and how much these infections detract from their ability to live their lives fully.

Usually the water that is drawn is taken back to their homes. But sometimes they bring it up and away from the edge and do their laundry or bathe their children. It’s a colourful surprise to find wardrobes spread out on bushes to dry. They seem to be careful not to let their soap residue get back into their source of drinking water. [It’s amazing to me, given the source of water, how clean they get their laundry and how clean they themselves are generally.]

The biggest irony (and frustration) to me is that these folks live only 12 kilometers from Lake Victoria, one of the largest lakes in the world. How hard would it be to pump water from the lake and circulate it to nearby areas? Supposedly this is being done. There are a couple of “stations” in the area – outlets (taps) where people can get water pumped from the lake – but……there is never any water. Either the pumps are broken or water is drawn off up the line leaving none for others. I’ve asked people about this. The common explanation is that politicians promise money, often the money has been forthcoming, but somehow the money never seems to reach the problem. It appears to be the way it is in Kenya (and the rest of Africa?) – it goes into politicians’ and bureaucrats’ pockets.

There are a lot of people living on the shores of Lake Victoria. The shoreline is a bustling place and fun to visit (and also sports a lot of interesting birds!). Study carefully the picture above and try to count all the types of activities going on. Women there have a different strategy. They still draw and carry water for home use but this is more restricted to cooking. Laundry, washing dishes, bathing is all done in the lake, often right next to each other. And often right next to fishermen pulling in their long nets full of little fish.

So all this helps put my “water problems” into perspective. As soon as the plumber gets here and works his magic (and magic it must be since I can’t conjure up a remedy), water will be available at the turn of a tap. How easy we have it.
Rick

PS The Fall banding season starts tomorrow – September 1st.