I Shouldn't Have Made All Those Dune References...

One of the most frightening things that can happen here, other than almost stepping on a scorpion the size of your middle finger, is turning on the tap and nothing coming out. Oddly enough this normally doesn't phase most Senegalese out here in the fouta, but it does scare the you-know-what out of me. I thought that I had left the lack of running water and bucket lugging behind me when I left the metropolis of Ourossogui (population 12,000) for quiet, reliable Ndioum (population 4,000 on a good day) but the water gods apparently had other plans for me. We are currently on day 4.5 of absolutely no water coming out of our taps. That's right, not even water in the middle of the night or the occasional trickle - there has been NOTHING for 4.5 days. It's brutal, and people are starting to smell rather ripe around here (myself included of course).

I helped Ndeye get water today - it took us close to an hour and almost killed me. We had to walk and walk until we reached a well that was still working (that's right - a bunch of them have dried up. WHY IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THIS BUT ME?!?), launch a bucket down a 80 foot concrete shaft (it gave me intense vertigo) several times to fill up our plastic buckets, and then lug those back to the house. I tried to carry one on my head for a while (I singlehandily provided a large portion of Ndioum with its entertainment for the day), but I had to give up halfway as I thought my neck was going to crack under the pressure. Those things are unbelievably heavy! Ndeye, on the other hand, managed one on her head (no hands) and another in one hand - she is my new hero. I've never felt so much respect for someone before, as this is what she has to do coutless times a day during these droughts, and this is what women do on a daily basis out in the villages where there is no such things as running water. I stand in awe of them.

Strangely enough, this whole process has made me love Ndioum even more, as while life here is far from a walk in the park, it is normally a wonderful combination of modern conveniences (that's what I call electricity, running water, the occasional access to cold beverages that come from fridges, having my own room, etc) and rural realities (these include the power/water regularly going out, herds of goats and cattle everywhere imaginable, horse/donkey charettes as the main form of transport, everything stopping during the harvest season, etc). I am forever grateful that I'm stuck out here instead of Dakar, though I'll admit that on mefloquine days I do have very vivid dreams of enjoying cheesy pizzas and ice-cold Sam Adams, only to awake to ceebujeen (fish and rice) yet again for lunch, with room temperature water to wash it all down. Guess you can't have it all...