Up North We Go

Today we start the trek up to Northern Uganda to look at our completed water projects. Last time I went by myself as Pete had broken his leg and was stuck in Kenya. Kampala has a totally different feel from Nairobi. Sure, there’s the same shops, money is a different currency, food is similar and some of the language is familiar. But it has a totally different feel about it.

 

The drive up north should take about 5 hours, but it can be up to 8 hours because of traffic or as last time, when the car broke down. There is no hurry in Africa. For example, our driver was meant to be here 45 minutes ago and he is still on his way. I will be surprised if he rocks up any time soon. Adjusting to going with the flow is not always easy for someone who is very task orientated. I’ve even resorted to leaving my watch off, although I’m thinking about putting it back on soon.

 

Living in Kenya has had a number of challenges, the ‘it’s always been done this way’ being one of them. Many are striving to make positive changes here, others want the benefits of change while holding on to the past. It’s a global struggle.

 

We are picking up hand made necklaces created from old magazines. Mothers from a small village make and sell them to pay for their school fees. People in the West buy them at 5 times the price because they look amazing and different. We use the money to continue putting clean water into remote places across East Africa. It’s kind of like the circle of life theory. In an essence, we’re helping them to help themselves.

 

I have no doubt that when we travel to Northern Uganda this time we will see many changes from 18 months ago. Some good stuff, some bad. What I can tell you before even going there is that the need for clean water is still a priority. Both the LRA and large NGO’s have pulled out of the area, now what is left is people who struggle from day to day to survive and provide for their families. If we can empower them to rebuild their community by giving them latrines and deep bore wells, then we have done our job.

 

Now, we just sit and wait for our driver. Told you it wouldn’t be soon before he arrives. Tick tock. Oh, that’s right, I left my watch in Nairobi.

Some of the challenges of Africa

Right now I am sitting with my feet up on a coffee table, the electricity is working, the TV is showing a doco about Everest and there is a huge thunderstorm happening outside.

When I wrote the last blog, we had a really dry season. Now, it’s all turned around. We were traveling through an area the other day that has never seen so much rain before. There’s been floods, lives lost and it is definitely cooler. This weather should last another month before it dries up again.

When it rains like this, I often think of the 800,000 people living in a nearby slum who have to lift their belongings off the dirt floor because the rain comes through their leaky roofs. I think of the villagers a couple of hours away who are experiencing huge erosion because there hasn’t been water to plant trees earlier in the year. Their best soil is probably moved elsewhere in the flooding.

Within the next month we travel all the way through Uganda looking at projects, then head back to Kenya to look into our next project. In a few months we make the long drive to Tanzania to do it all over again.One of the biggest challenges we face each day is to turn away people in need. Last week I had to say no to two potential projects because they didn’t fit in with what we do. Another one had to be scaled back to just a hand pump because we didn’t have all the funds.  While they were all noble causes, it just wasn’t something we could do.

While I’m looking at the work that has been completed, there is still a phenomenal amount to be done. Every day I see people (in a city) carrying 25 – 50kg’s of water. They pay anywhere from 15 – 25 cents per container and carry it all the way. It doesn’t seem a lot but when you earn $5 a day, it sure adds up.

An hour’s drive out you see donkey’s pulling carts full of the same containers. The donkeys are whipped mercilessly and we hate it. But for the seller, it’s a great source of income.

Even though there is plenty of water around at the moment it’s not safe nor clean. These are the underlying values of what we have in BeyondWater. We’re not happy just to give any old water, it has to be drinkable and safe.

The word ‘safe’ here means something totally different than in the West. Here, it means life or death. The reality of death is all too real. On our way back into Nairobi on Monday there were several vehicles that had been swept away in floods, plenty of houses with belongings outside trying to dry and crowds of people by an overflowing lake standing around wondering if the water would reach their homes.

We don’t call them problems here, we call them challenges, which means there’s always an opportunity to overcome them.

 

Finding clean water

 

 

 

 

The Big Dry is Here

Currently we are based in East Africa, Nairobi Kenya to be precise. It means we are closer to our projects and can be looking at potential projects as well. For the past 3 months we’ve had more rain than ever, when it was meant to be hot, hot, hot.

Last year was our last one in the sunny, warm continent of Australia. Except it was anything but sunny and warm. There was no such thing as Summer and while we lived by the beach I didn’t even go swimming the whole time. I was so gutted that I left Summer as white as I entered, especially knowing that we would be 9 hours from the nearest beach for the next 20 years.

So, we move to Nairobi and it rains for weeks on end. It rained so much we had to buy a clothes rack to try and not run out of clothes.

The hottest season is meant to be from January to March each year. Blame it on global warming (not sure about that one) or whatever you like but weather patterns are changing. It took until mid-February for the Big Dry to set in.

Now that the Big Dry is here, we really know about it. There’s been no rain for weeks, the grass is brown, diseases like foot and mouth have arrived and it is constantly hot and then hotter. In some parts the temperature is at 40 degrees Celsius and above. There’s no need for jumpers or jeans, where we can, it’s shorts all the way.

Rivers and water supplies are starting to dry up and in the city we’ve seen Masai bringing in their cows for better pastures. The many rains we have had are but a distant memory.

Because of the water shortage prices will increase bringing more financial pressure on families who are already struggling to pay school and tuition fees.

This is why we must defend the poor and needy by ensuring they have access to safe drinking water. If we don’t speak up for them, who will?

Learn to Celebrate

Last week we went on a 6 hour drive to Eldoret in Wester Kenya. Most of it was on a sealed road except for about 15km’s which was like being in a milkshake container for an hour. Normally we would stop off and look at the amazing scenery or at a roadside stall for a cold Coke. This time we had to get there by 1pm to be there in time to meet the students and open a latrine block BeyondWater had funded.

Imagine playing dodgems with trucks coming on your side of the road, along with crazy car drivers coming up on the inside of the lane, where there isn’t one. All in 30 degree heat and an air con system that makes no difference.

When we arrived in Eldoret we met Mary with whom I’d only known via emails and Facebook posts. She was a breath of fresh air after the exhausting drive. She led us to the boarding facility where 40 kids with Albinism live and go to school next door.

Normally when you enter the school kids come running up to you either singing or wanting to hold your hand. For these kids though, going out in the sun is a dangerous thing. Without these facilities many of them would develop skin cancer and be dead by the time they were 30. That’s if they survived at all. Albino’s are a sign of shame here. Parents keep their kids inside for fear of reprisal from the local community, being kidnapped or sold off. A hand of someone with Albinism can go for $500 under the guise that it will cure cancer. Some people believe if you have sex with an Albino you will be cured of AIDS. The list goes on.

What Mary and her team have done is create a safe environment where the kids are integrated into the school next door, they have a farm to encourage self sustainability and now they have an extra set of latrines.

In the West we take toilets for granted. Here, having water can be a rarity. While the facilities at the boarding home are great, their big problem was when the town supply of water just stopped it was unhealthy for the kids. No way to flush the toilets, no way to have a wash or do the laundry. So, for a couple of thousand dollars they now have an outdoor shower with a water tank, some pit latrines and a guest latrine (a sit on one) and a tap to wash their hands.

At BeyondWater one of our aims is to bring dignity back into the lives of young people. Simply having a safe place to do your business is one way to do it.

We are finding at our completed projects that many of them will not be used until we officially come and open them. In our Western way we think it’s crazy because if the need is so big, just go ahead and use it. In East African style though it’s the opposite. Waiting until a representative arrives is giving them the honour due to them. These latrines were cutely decorated with Christmas tinsel and colourful ribbons. One thing we’ve learnt living in Sydney is that you use any reason to celebrate. The World Cup is on, let’s decorate the bridge. The Queen Mary is floating by, let’s get a million people into the city to watch the fireworks and boats. The sun is shining, let’s have a party!

Fundraising is hard, a chore and doesn’t always get you the results you really want or need. So when we get to represent our donors and officially open a project is a real cause to celebrate. We should never take it for granted for what we are doing. It’s an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.

On our travels across Kenya and Tanzania of late I have seen so many young children carrying 50kg containers full of water. I think what it’s doing to their bodies, the fact that they’re not in school and that their future has little in it but poverty.

Let’s not get slack and say what a great work we’ve done. We’ve only just started. Let’s celebrate while we can, then get back to work in changing lives.

What it takes to make a video

One of our volunteers Hannah has done some video work for us. This is a behind the scenes video that she was presenting for a school in Australia. Watch and learn.

Is it really THAT bad?

I’ve been living in Kenya for a month now. In that time I’ve also travelled to Tanzania. I’ve had lots of opportunities to travel around and see things from a residents view, rather than just a visitor.

 

Things don’t change rapidly here. Sure, the internet and global trading has had a huge influence but many things are still archaic. There is such irony here, on one hand you’ll see overweight Kenyans sipping a latte at the mall with their hands overfull with lavish Christmas presents. A five minute drive up the road is one of the biggest slums in the world where people struggle to earn a dollar a day.

 

I have friends back in Sydney who laugh at our very modest lifestyle and shriek in horror when I tell them I’m about to jump on a motorbike to do some shopping. They will probably never come to a place like Kenya and that’s okay. It’s a pity though because Africa is much more than war, poverty and famine.

 

People here are very hard workers and even when they have little they will share it with someone in need. There is amazing scenery that you can only see on the Discovery Channel, and the majority of people are doing everything they can to improve their lifestyle.

 

However, I can tell you that poverty is as bad as it sounds. There’s no government pension or aid if you’re unemployed. You’re expected to retire around 65 but then what do you do for money? There’s no baby bonus and certainly no training allowance to attend uni or TAFE.

 

One of the areas we work in is alleviating poverty through the provision of safe, clean drinking water. Those 4 words mean a lot. Safe – even we boil our drinking water and we live in town. Clean – people still clean their plastic containers with stones (i.e. dirty) because they can’t afford cleaning products. Drinking – not all water is drinkable, Coke is a much safer option. Water – it’s not widely available everywhere.

 

Yes, people are still spending hours each day going to the nearest water supply to buy what they need. They then have to walk back home again.

 

While we know it isn’t right, whinging about it does nothing for the one billion people globally who don’t have access to water. It’s time for action.

 

As we draw a close to 2012, I look in anticipation about the positive affect BeyondWater will have in the lives of thousands of people. Let’s not wait till next year to do something, let’s do it NOW.

This Walk Will Kill You

I’m currently based in Nairobi, working closely with our partners on the ground trying to bring change to communities through clean drinking water.

In a couple of days a team of 4 will climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for future projects. It’s cold, hard and a challenge to even the best athletes. Last year one of our team broke their leg coming down, here’s to no mishaps this year.

I’ve been in Kenya for a week and this is my 4th trip here so I know how things work pretty well. Nairobi is a city of a few million people, there’s malls, highways, ATM’s and also lots of poverty. There’s plenty of open sewers and waterways full of rubbish so the smell at times is quite gross.

While the roads are jam packed with traffic crawling along, many people, like us choose to walk. In our case, we don’t own a vehicle, and to go short distance it’s not worth going through snarling traffic. Mind you, an out of control car the other day nearly took us out as we walked back from the mall. The guy definitely didn’t know how to drive and it was only our fast moves that saved us from disaster (don’t tell our insurance company).

Yesterday I was out on a pike pike (motorbike) paying for our teams guest house and safari when I saw something so very wrong. Just up from the huge hospital a guy was squatting and washing a container in the most filthy water available. I’m talking about black, rubbish filled yuckiness.

It reminded me about the many mamas (mothers) and watoto’s (children) who walk a long way to the nearest water supply only to find something undrinkable, but they have no other option.

So when you have the simple pleasure of turning on the tap to get your water, fill up the jug, have a bath, a nice long shower just think about those who can’t.

Then do something about it.

http://makingadifference.gofundraise.com.au/page/Buyawell