Water
The sun has shone for most of September and October and I can’t remember a drop of rain for weeks. The ground is as dry as porridge oats and as friable. The plants are wilting, drooping and dying. When I turn the hose on, the water plummets through to the centre of the earth, leaving everything gasping.
I fill water bowls at every level for the birds and animals; deep ones on the ground for the larger creatures, shallow-lipped ones for scurrying things, others on tops of things for the smaller birds to drink safely – and refill them every day. It evaporates, it’s drunk, it’s spilled, gobbled up by that thirsty sun and by dehydrated wildlife.
When I see who flocks to a newly filled bowl – blue tits and pigeons, foxes and cats – I think back to the day when I learned what it was like to have no water on tap.
It was January a few years ago. Cold, dark and wet in England when I shut the doors, drew the curtains and stayed home. Then I was invited to Kenya by an African girl who had been on the same course as me – to visit her family. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance?
So clad in woollies and thick socks, I packed my flip-flops and headed for Mombasa. I even took a coat, unable to conceive of warmth in my chilly winter world.
The heat hit me like a wall as I stepped off the plane. My body had acclimatised slowly to English winter and with no warning, found itself jettisoned into the most humid, airless, equatorial summer it had ever experienced.
I felt the heat, glowed mightily, I perspired, dare I admit I sweated like paedophile on Death Row? I drank gallons.
My skimpy summer dresses stuck to my body and my hair clumped to my forehead. I could wring out my bed sheets (embarrassing as the guest of honour) and sat at dinner, making polite conversation with her husband, sweat pouring into my eyes.
‘Are you hot?’ enquired her cousin at table, giggling behind a polite hand.
They were a well-to-do family in a good area with a large house and servants. I felt like poor white trash as I slimed about the place, showing them up.
My temperate body was unused to storing water and the liquid passages moved clearly; I drank loads and wee-ed little, the water evaporating off me as it entered. After a day, I abandoned make-up – my mascara was running down my cheeks by ten in the morning. My pores were wide open like craters, to cool me down.
So I was hot. Unrelentingly hot. Got the picture? OK.
A few days in, I was showering gratefully in the morning after another sultry, sleepless night with the industrial fan whirring uselessly. I was covered in soap when the shower stopped. I twiddled the dial. Nothing. What to do? I was naked and covered in soap. Did I mention the soap? I stepped to the hand basin and turned the taps. Nothing.
I’d lived in Africa before. Perhaps someone needed to turn on the pump for the ground water? It was a house full of people: parents, cousins, children, servants. Someone would notice and switch it on. I waited.
Nothing.
I scraped the soap off as best I could and wrapped a towel around my sticky body. I opened my bedroom door and looked out. My friend was passing.
‘There’s no water?’ I said.
‘No,’ replied my friend, matter-of-fact. ‘Charles has to go and buy some.’
It transpired that they had a water tank under their house – and it was empty. When this happened, the husband would jump in his Mercedes, drive 30km to the dam, hire a tanker, fill it with water, find a tank driver, direct it back to the house, attach the pipes and pump it into their holding tank. The whole process would take many hours, assuming he could find a tanker for hire and a driver who fancied a bit of work. No sweat. That’s what they thought.
So there was no water in the house. None at all. That was it, until sometime that afternoon if we were lucky.
My lily body needed water, inside and out. I was still covered in greasy soap and I was perpetually thirsty. There was a third of a glass on my bedside table and a little left in the plastic bottle I’d used yesterday. There was the water in the toilet. I sipped the bedside glass and put it down again because I didn’t know when there’d ever be any more. I became frightened of lacking something so simple, something I’d always taken for granted: water.
I went to the loo and flushed without thinking. As the cistern emptied, I almost stuffed in my hands to stop it – how could I be stupid, so wasteful?
The plans for that day went by the wayside. As I sat with the others, awaiting the tanker, eyeing possible water sources, I realised for the first time, how imperative it was. The heat of the day increased, the people wilted. The children became fretful, the dogs whined; the hours passed and we were all thirsty.
There was a little in a shaded drain and another toilet with a full cistern. There was a half-made stew on the stove and a carton of juice in the fridge. And nine people. I eyed the saucers of pot plants in case they harboured a residue. The thermometer raged. Me, of all of us, struggled with panic. My tongue stuck in my mouth, it was hard to speak. I longed for the glass I'd tipped away yesterday because it was a bit dusty. How could there be no water, nothing to drink anywhere, intense heat and parched mouth, with nothing to quench it?
The tanker finally arrived followed by Charles in his Mercedes; the returning hero – the relief of a breaking storm.
Filling the tank under the house took another hour or two and it was evening before I could finish my shower. I was very quick. I didn't leave the tap running as I cleaned my teeth. I drank like a giraffe at a water hole, filling the chapped recesses of my body. I realised how valuable water was, and without it, nothing else matters.
Water is precious and you don’t know how much, until there isn’t any. None at all.
I know what it’s like to visit place after place and find them dry; the panic, the fear. That’s why I fill the bowls in the garden with water and keep them filled, for anyone of any species, who may be thirsty.
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26 Comments
What I will say is Soap! What? Stuck on you all day! Ecky thump!
No wonder you are driven to put out rinsing bowls for any poor creature similarly afflicted!
(By the way, you're clearly not living in Yorkshire if you think it's been dry lately...)
I do sometimes think about birds and animals whose daily grind is to eat and drink enough to survive - avoiding predators as they go. They'll be grateful to you for your provisioning, they'll know it's you of course.
Prop, indeed. It's scary, no?
Spangles, I've never forgotten it and even now, rarely tip water away - if I don't want it, I water the plants with it at least.
I think we have a lot of chlorine or flouride in our water in Middlesbrough because Henry hates it and my goldfish- having survived 3 years on Huddersfield tap water died shortly after I returned home from University.
Mac
Yes Tony, it's good to see the back-up plans we have. Curious though, how vulnerable you feel when your supply is suddenly cut off - I mean, you probably wouldn't get through 24 litres of drinking water in 24 hours under normal circs, would you? It's that panicky feeling that it might be all there is.
Weens, there may have been a bit of coke around - and beer- but sugar water (or beer) doesn't actually quench your thirst - it just seems like it because it's cold and wet - it actually dehydrates you more, because of the sugar (as sea water does because of the salt). The others weren't nearly as scared as me, as a) they were more acclimatised to the heat, and b) they were more accustomed to such events; whereas I was a newbie at all this. I think there was some water left in the kettle as well, but you try not to drink it - in case you finish it and then there's absolutely nothing left. There's some comfort in knowing there are a few drops around, even though you're hot and thirsty.
As for ensuring you have supplies in advance - well, we didn't anticipate the tank running dry - if they had, they'd have hired the tanker already. Being prepared for a drought is different to having one come on unexpectedly: as I said earlier, when I was lost in the Kalahari with only the limited supply of water we'd brought with us, it wasn't so scary as we'd already planned to use it sparingly, so it was less of a shock when we had to eke it out further.
Catherine, how interesting! Only scalding water available! Was this from some hot spring? Or a boiler gone mad?
Local people seem to have it sewn up, don't they? In the Mombasa case, it was only a matter of hours in the end - just made me think, that's all.
And the idea of driving to the reservoir and hiring a tanker as a matter of routine, was a stunning thought for me.
Spangles, what a moving film; Commerce wins nearly every time, doesn't it? Apparently, the Conquistador of Chile (Pedro de Valdivia) was killed by the exploited natives who tied him to a stake and poured molten gold down his throat. One has some sympathy.
Mcallan - obviously you live in some foreign country, with Gerry!
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