Last summer, the Opanga water committee would purchase oil
in the next town over and bring it to Luanda to run the water pump. Saturdays
were the busiest day when the pump was filled and everyone came to collect
water. They would continue collecting water starting with the filtered water
until it ran out. Then, they would use the unfiltered water until it ran out.
Now, the pump is going to be run by electricity. This will make things much
better as the water committee can save the money they normally spend on fuel
for maintenance and repairs to keep the pump running. The tricky part that I
did not realize is how complicated the process is to get power. Even Benson’s
brother who has fully paid for his home to be added to the electric grid is
still waiting and has been waiting for months for the power company to come out
and do this.
Every day I have been here, I have seen people gathered at
the tapstand. I can watch them as I wake up in the morning. The crowd thins as
the sun becomes hot in the afternoon and continues to grow again as people
collect water in the evening. I have noticed that the animals have not come as
close to the taps. The donkeys still enter the gate, but wait by its entrance
to carry the containers of water after they are filled.
Benson’s daughter told me that before the pump, she used to
bring the donkeys down to the lake every day for water. She would leave early
in the morning and walk about half an hour to fill the jerry cans then bring
them back traveling uphill the whole way home. Things are definitely improving
for the women (and donkeys) in the community.
There are some things about electricity that I worry will
change in the community though. One of my favorite times of day is the evening
after dinner when everyone “stories.” I love hearing people share tales from
their past and stories about the world. I worry that this will turn into tv
time like it is in the US and at Benson’s house they already watch lots of tv
and they have only had power for a month. Benson says it is really nice to be
up-to-date on the news and I agree that this is good, but I will be sorry if
storying is lost to the tv.
What kind of news stations do they have in Kenya? Is it like ours?
ReplyDeleteThe news stations that I have seen so far are like ours except a little more obvious about judging the events that take place. There was this one story about girls at a public school who are suing their teachers for punishing them when they where short skirts. Their dress code only lets them wear ankle length skirts and the news reporter said something like, what a loss of modesty, what will our teenagers think of next. Another story was turned into a rap which was pretty entertaining. After the full story of this member of parliament who lost his job and then uncovered the horrible things his boss did. He ran to Canada when asked to give the police a statement so they turned his own words into a rap about him running away and played it between other news stories.
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