October 23 - Water

Water

It’s the end of the rainy season.  In the months that come, I’ll experience the dusty wind called the Harmattan for the first time, the green grass will dry up, and the cattle will be herded miles from the village looking for food. I’ll also have to start putting a bit more thought into how to get water.

Like most volunteers in Benin, I don’t have running water.  When I arrived in village about three months ago, one of the first things I bought was a large black plastic water barrel, and several plastic basins.  My water barrel lives behind my house, under the sloping tin roof, and whenever it rains I line up the plastic basins next to it and collect as much of the water running off the roof as I can.  Up until very recently, I was able to get plenty of water to meet my needs this way.  I boiled and filtered the water for drinking, and also used it for bucket baths, doing dishes and laundry, and washing my concrete floor. 

But now, “whenever it rains” won’t be until spring.  Figuring out my new water acquiring system took almost a month.  Here’s a journal entry from October 15, a particularly memorable day in the saga:

Today being effectively out of rainwater to bathe in, I asked Nafisa (a girl from my compound) to help me collect well water for my bathing and dishwashing needs.  I had bought a yellow “bidon” that had held vegetable oil previously earlier this week.  I can see the advantage of buying these pre-washed, rather than from the oil seller like I did.  How do you get an oily bidon to stop being oily?  It involved four washes, two with hot water, and a special purchase of powdered soap to pour in with the hot water the second time.  I thumped and rolled the bidon filled with boiling-hot sudsy water around my room, and used the water that leaked out to wash my floor at the same time.  Then a bleach rinse, and finally my bidon smells like soap/bleach and not oil. 

Today, Nafisa and I set out – her with the bidon, me with a smaller orange pail I bought at the market earlier today – to get water.  We walked through the market – I didn’t think the market was on the way to the well.  “Great – I chose market day to walk clumsily through village with an orange pail of water on my head.”  We kept walking, and I figured out that we were going to the pump near the school.  Farther than I’d been counting on for this second “water carrying on head” adventure.  The pump was out of commission – broken I think – so she said we’d go to the well with the hand-crank mechanism that’s near the town government office.  I tried to ask why we didn’t go to the well near our house. And I think the answer was that the water isn’t potable– people do things like wash in it.  At the crank well the cover was locked and Nafisa ran off to get the key.  She returned empty handed.  I asked again if we could go to the well near the house, the water isn’t to drink, it’s just for washing – it doesn’t need to be potable.  But she suggested that we go to the pump at the health center, she’d been told by another kid that they weren’t charging money there today (I hadn’t brought any small change with me).  Ironically, this whole time, the sky looked like a menacing thunderstorm was on the way.  We went to the health center, but the pump didn’t work – it was locked.  We considered getting the key for a moment – I’m not sure if she asked or not – and then we headed home, finally to go to the well by the house.  It started to thunder and rain, and we ran – Nafisa with my orange bucket on her head like a hat, a second kid carrying the yellow bidon on her head and me with a colorful scrap of cloth that Nafisa gave me.  She’d had it along to cushion the heavy bidon on her head once we’d filled it, and I held on my head corners gathered under my chin like a peasant.  Running through village was fun, one of those “This is Peace Corps” moments.  Getting home, I quickly uncovered my black water barrel and lined up plastic bowls and buckets out back.  Appropriately, I was wearing my pagne (wrap skirt) with the pattern of umbrellas on it during this adventure.

It took me a few more weeks to work out the system I’ll be using at least until the rainy season starts again, with the help of my counterpart (work partner/host).  He helped me get two more bidons, bringing my total up to three.  Whenever two are empty, I’ll pay Nafisa to get water for me.  This way I’ll never run out.  Right now all three bidons are full and lined up in my “living room” – 75 liters of water waiting to be used. 

Whether it’s rainwater or well water or pump water, I’m so much more conscious of my water use here than I was in the states.  People here take advantage of water wherever they can find it.  Most people go to a stream or spring to wash their laundry, since this cuts back on the amount of water they need to bring to their home.  During the rainy season, I even saw people washing their laundry in the road where it had been washed out.  If they go to wash laundry, they also bring that day’s dirty dishes with them – why not?  And at the end of washing the laundry and dishes, they usually take off and wash the clothes they are wearing, and then wash themselves.  That much less water to fetch from the well.  I’ve started to go along to the stream to wash my laundry, too.

It’s hard to explain how different water feels now that I’m in Peonga.  When I’m walking through the village and I hear the sound of someone pouring a big basin of water from the well into their water barrel, it sounds so precious, like a treasure.  When I take my bucket bath, I dunk my head in the bucket and swish my hair around first to imagine the feeling of being submerged in water.  The other day we had a surprise rain shower – the rainy season is officially over.  As I watched the drops fall from under the tin roof where I was sitting, I thought about how rain really is such a miracle – free water from the sky. 

Every single task, washing dishes, clothes, or myself, makes me think about water and how precious it is. If you wish you too could experience water use “the Beninese way,” don’t worry – all you need is a bucket of water and the following simple step-by-step instructions for simple household tasks.  I even measured out the amount of water I use for two of the tasks (Peace Corps volunteers have a lot of free time).

Laundry

Supplies: a bucket of water or a stream, two large bowls or basins, a bar of soap

Put a little water into one of the basins, getting a couple pieces of clothing wet. Rub soap all over the clothes, paying attention to easily soiled areas – like the collar or underarms for a shirt.  Scrub the shirt by rubbing it together in your hands, getting it wet repeatedly in the water, and “knead” it vigorously in the water, squeezing soapy water through the fabric.   Wring it out and set it aside.  Once you’ve washed several pieces of clothing and the water is looking dirty (or has turned bright green or blue or red if your clothes aren’t colorfast, like most clothes in Benin), throw the water out.  Repeat the process, doing a second wash, for any of the clothes that were particularly dirty.  Wring them out again.  Put clean water in the basin, and rinse the clothes by putting them in the water and swishing them around vigorously.  Wring them out thoroughly.  Throw out the water.  Add more clean water, rinse again.  Wring clothes out again.  Hang them to dry.  Before putting them on the clothesline, flick each one several times to get rid of more water and also make sure no wrinkles dry into the fabric.  I thought this last trick was particularly neat – no need for an iron here!

Dishes

Supplies: one and a half liters of water, dirty dishes, a bar of soap, a small recycled black plastic bag

Pour a small amount of water into one of your dirty dishes.  Get your little plastic bag soapy, and use it to scrub the dish.  Pour the soapy water into a second dish, scrub it, pour it into a third dish, etc until the water is really too dirty to use any more.  Throw it away. Wash all the dishes this way, then rinse them by pouring fresh water into the first one, swishing it around with your hand, pouring it into the second one, etc.  You really need very little water to wash dishes. 

Bathing

Supplies: Three liters of water, a small plastic bowl, soap, sponge

Fill the bowl with water from your bucket.  Kneel down next to the bucket, dunking your head and pouring the bowl of water over it at the same time to get all your hair wet.  Standing up, pour one or two bowlfuls of water over the rest of your body.  Soap up, paying special attention to your feet which are inevitably dusty and dirty, and rinse by pouring more bowlfuls of water over yourself.   If it is raining and your bathing area is uncovered like mine, you can dispense with the bucket of water and enjoy a true “running water” shower!