Footing

Today we went 'footing' - I joined Katherine and the two dentists (Nigel and Vicky - and their traveling teddy Clyde) on a walk with Watson to see the wells he maintains to provide safe water to the local villages. But before we set out, we had a quick look in the room the dentists will be using - not least because I will be their first patient after a piece of a filling fell off one morning while I was cleaning my teeth. It left a small hole, but it is not giving me any pain. Still,  will need a temporary filling to ensure I can enjoy the rest of my time in Africa.

Footing with Watson proved to be a great day - walking about 14km around the countryside and realising just how fortunate we are to have water literally on tap. Water projects like those Watson supervises are vital to the area - it is estimated that $1 spent on providing safe water will save $8 in general medical spending (sadly I am using a keyboard with English notation but running American setting, and I have no idea where the pound symbol resides - what says it is a pound turns out to be #). Each well costs between $2800 and $4200, while repairing a shallow well costs around $140.

One of the first sights that met was us as we went footing was an image from the book of Exodus - a young man making bricks out of the local clay. The clay is mixed with water and placed into a simple former that produces two bricks at a time. The bricks are then dried for a few days, stacked into piles which have gaps at the bottom, and then fired - by placing wood in the gaps and setting light to it. They turn out surprisingly strong.

As we went around we soon learned that most of the wells in the area are shallow wells - as the water table in the lower lying areas is only 20 to 30 feet below the surface. This is fortunate - as shallow wells are cheaper to build and maintain, and easier to use; although even a deep well will only take two weeks to bring water to an area. However, all things need repair from time to time - and shallow wells seem to last about five years before major repairs are required. Watson took us to n area where such repairs were needed - with cracked concrete and metal fatigue on the pump.This left about 2000 people without the safe water they had grown used to, as once more they had to look to scrapes in the river.

We were taken to see one such scrape. It was close by the river bed in the midst of a cultivated area. The women would come five or six times a day to fill their buckets and carry them home on their heads - often a journey of more than half a kilometre. At least at the moment the water was easy to get to - there are still two months until the rainy season comes, and the level will get much lower, and may even need the hole to be dug down deeper to find even a few inches of water. It was hard to watch as the women came to fill their buckets - especially when they filled a 2lt bottle for a young child, who then proudly carried it away on her head.

Of course water is not the only problem. Access can prove difficult, especially in the wet season. Watson took us to one such community where the problem of access had been solved. At the height of the wet season the river flows up to six feet deep, and this prevents access to villages on the far side of the water - so that children cannot get to school, mothers struggle to get to hospital, and supplies cannot easily be brought in. A short while back the Raven Trust enabled a local community to build a bridge to ensure access to the village throughout the year, and to ease the journey to school even in the dry season.

Watson took us to the village, and we were introduced to the local head man. On the way to the village we soon picked up a small entourage of children coming home from school - primary schooling is free in Malawi, and the school day lasts from 7 to 1. We felt something like a collective pied piper as we walked along the path - although by the time we reached our destination, the troupe had reduced to one - the head man's daughter - as one by one the children peeled off to go to their homes.

We spent some time talking to chief - at times joyfully sharing the differences between our homelands (he could not quite get the idea of potatoes as a staple diet - here they are a luxury to be used as a special vegetable), at times listening to his woes (his wife needed some dental treatment, which will be provided in a few days when the surgery is open; more worryingly this village of about 7000 is still waiting for its turn in the programme to provide a deep well, as the water is about 45m below the surface here). Towards the end of our stay we suddenly realised that his wife had been preparing a meal for us - chicken stew, seema and cabbage. It was a privilege to share their hospitality, knowing they had so little; and it was a surprise when they did not eat with us. Although people here have so little, they are remarkably generous with what they do have.

So at the end of a long and thirsty day it was back to Ekwendeni, to sit for a while in the shade of Watson's house, and to slake out thirst with Coke and Fanta from the local store. But the tour had not finished, for as we left to find a taxi back home we were shown the deep well that served this part of the town, fetching water from nearly 50m underground. It had been a long day, and I doubt if I will ever take water for granted again.