One thing I've been thinking about recently is water and how we should never take it for granted. I was so miffed yesterday because I didn't take my camera with me when we went down to visit our friends in the valley as I could have taken pictures of just how difficult it is for some people to obtain water!
Our friends have an orphanage and 13 kids live with them in a very small house. For about 4 months now their mains water supply has been erratic, mostly cut off, with occasional times when it's on... They have a big water tank in the yard and a smaller one too. They haven't not paid the bill or anything, the water should be free for them, and for everyone in the valley. There's a certain amount of water allowed for free.
So, a big water truck has been coming round to give them water. Yesterday it came around while we were there. It stopped up the hill from the house and we had to take big buckets (probably 20Litre capacity) up to the lorry to fill up. They have a bigger water container which they filled from the smaller buckets from the lorry and then decant back into the medium tank, via the smaller buckets, walking back and forth up the hill each time. Sounds like a lot of faffing around? It was. And the annoying thing is if the lorry stopped just 10 metres down the road at the gate, that would have taken a lot of stress out of it. And the even more annoying thing is that the lorry driver promised to stop on his way out of the valley and fill the big tank for them. But he didn't.
This is a family of 15 who obviously need water to wash, and drink and cook and all the normal things you'd expect. The water from the lorry is mostly used for washing, it didn't look that clean. Recently the people delivering water from the municipality have started asking for R200 cash to fill up the tank. That might not sound like much but it's supposed to be free and it is a lot when you have not much money and many mouths to feed. R, who runs the place, has been to the offices to complain about it, but it seems the complaints have fallen on deaf ears.
Spending time down there is giving me a local's view of the life in the valley and the everyday frustrations. Even the simplest of things, like delivering water, are subject to corruption. And what choice do they have? They need water to live.
