Stopcocks Women Plumbers are involved in a project in Kenya, to create a rainwater harvesting system which will provide a clean water supply to an orphanage and women’s support house, for both drinking and agriculture. Hattie & Mica and several others from their collective of women plumbers, hope to be at the Amani Community Home in Kithoka, Meru next year to begin constructing it and training women from Kithoka's own community (lots more information about Amani at www.stopcocks.co.uk/ ) to manage and maintain it.
It would be crass and hugely offensive to those women for whom it is a daily necessity, to imagine that because I walk approximately 100 metres round trip for the same purpose, I possess any insight into what it means to spend a substantial part of each day collecting water. I unequivocally do not. I do not lack water or access to it; I merely need to walk a bit further than to the kitchen sink I have not had and fetch it from a standpipe...
The very worst one can say is that it is inconvenient. As I've said in other posts, it's amazing what you can live without. But I have CHOSEN to live without.
These months of bottling and carrying have though, caused me to be a little more aware of how I use water; for what, how much and how often. I recycle it for example, give it two tasks; wash my hair and then launder my smalls in the froth. We rush out into the rain with buckets to catch the rivulets running off the roof and use it mainly for flushing the sea loo but also for watering the plants - who are also being fed tea dregs.
Since there is no drain down which to discharge, we have to jettison liquids from either a porthole or, because the washing-up bowl won't fit through one, from the deck. This may also be a contributory factor in the conservation of water as I am inclined, through laziness, to postpone the emptying and thus, in the interval, find another use for it - even for just another cup or hand wash. In addition to dirty water, the sea loo benefits from jar-juices so its air is frequently fragranced with olive or tunary brine.
The thing about water not being on tap indoors is, that I notice it. I notice its absence and value its presence. How profligate I have hitherto been with it. Quite probably, once we have taps -
although I will endeavour not to take it for granted - I will be so again.
Hattie, coming downstairs for a tool, digresses from her calculations on the cubic meterage of the water tanks that are being built at the Community Home, and reckons Davenham's tanks' capacity to be 30,000 litres each. With 2 tanks we will have 60,000 litres. Sixty thousand (those tank-litres look even more capacious in words) litres of bright, flowing water!!! From our own tap - indoors!!!!
"How many trips to fetch water will that save..!" she laughs.
Steve finds that the calculator on his phone has no division symbol which seems ridiculous but he likes numbers and joins in.
We begin musing...
How many bottles would it take to fill the tanks ....?
Here is the formula:
60 divided by 5 = 12 so 12,000 (5-litre) bottles would be required to fill both tanks.
At 3 bottles each trip: 12,000 divided by 3 = 4,000 trips!!
"Then, let's say, 100 metres to the well and back...." Hattie continues, "= 400,000 metres = 400 kilometres of walking!!"
I could walk to True North John in Cardiff and continue to Aberystwyth (a place I've long wanted to visit) and beyond, instead of collecting water!
And instead of hiking I suspect even greater distances to collect theirs, imagine how many kilometres, hours and energies Hatttie and her Stopcocks plumbers will save the the women at Amani...
Then there is the time factor... approximately 15 mins per round trip, 7 trips x 15 minutes = 105minutes = 1 hour 45 minutes a week. A week! That's the length of a film, or a few chapters of a novel, or two complete listenings to "Wish You Were Here". It's a ruminating, cake baking, writing a letter, conversing, loving, healing, creating or doing absolutely nothing an amount of liberated time!
I further estimate that if 3 x 5-litre bottles at a time equals 15 litres per fill-up, at a rate of 3 bottles each day, we are using 105 litres per week. That doesn't include flushing the lavatory, showers or rinsing crockery (guests should note that all cups, mugs, pans are sluiced with water from the kettle prior to use). With 60,000 - 105 = 59, 895 litres left to cascade upon me, I'm looking forward to an abundance of showers.
Based on showers alone, if both Boat Husband and I have a daily dousing (Henry's personal hygiene regime does not include water and is somewhat more public)
and mine takes 10 minutes and his 15 and the quantity of water pumped up is, say, 1 litre per minute and filling each tank takes 5 hours, how often would a single tank need to be refilled?
Answers must show workings out.
