Drying up

I planted my garden which may have been quite a mistake at this time of year. It needs about five buckets of water a day, which I have to carry from the pond down by the road. Even with that much water, only the surface is moistened. Corn and sunflowers have sprouted, but everything else is still contemplating existence under the soil in the hot sun. 

Rains won't start until November, so I can always wait until then to plant a round two to save time and energy in case this round fails. 

Every morning I still go down to the pond to get water, where there is still some clear water in the small springs and sand pits the women have dug to filter out the cloudiness of the pond water. The Chinese road construction company pulls up its two big water trucks on the far side of the raw pond, letting down big hoses powered by generators to pull up the muddy water to fill their tanks. Sometimes it feels a bit like a race; the trucks taking up water rapidly on one side, women with plastic buckets and cans of every color scooping up water by the bowlful on the other. Mechanical advantage is not something to be messed with. 

Things are progressing slowly here; in the past week or so I've been to two village government meetings regarding the water situation. Meetings are fine, except when you get there on time and have to wait an hour plus for everyone else to show up, and then evening is approaching rapidly and all you can think about is how tired you are of trying to understand rapid-fire Swahili, and how you still have to light your charcoal stove and cook. 

At the second meeting, I guess I had a bit of a dazed and glassy look to me as the meeting wrapped up, and I stepped outside as people were shifting, in an attempt to segue back to my house. The leaders called me back in and handed me a thousand shilling note. "Go get soda," they told me. I tried to decline but the sympathetic looks on their faces told me that they knew how I was feeling; exhausted and in need of a sugar pick-me-up. Maybe I should be a little more careful to not let my air of ennui show during these meetings!

Life goes on under the hot sun, shielding your eyes as you pick your way home from the pond, a bucket full of water on your head, and a rest in the shade on your mind.