Water. Working.
“Are you ready to work?” the villager elder asked.
“We’ve had too many people come here, make promises
and do nothing. We need you to be serious.”
It wasn’t the reaction I expected. We had come there,
flush with enthusiasm, bringing grand ideas to develop the
local economy and create jobs.
It will be wonderful, we promised. The villagers were not
buying.
Water. That’s all they wanted. Water. That’s
it.
It is a modestly sized village of about 4,000 people. While
located not far from Kandahar City, its residents seem to
be more or less ignored and left to their own devices.
They are desperately poor, with little work or money for
food, much less comfort. Only two of the community’s
dozen wells actually choked out water, forcing most to drink
brackish water from a nearby canal.
Others, mostly women and children, walk long distances to
beg from other villages. Hard work when the weather hits 45
Celsius.
"We are thirsty. Our children are sick from dirty
water. Dig us wells, show us you mean what you say, and
we can take if from there," said an elder. He said
he had grown weary of the endless parade of aid agencies
that talk, talk – but never deliver.
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They had a point. There’s been too much learned
discussion about development in Kandahar and not enough
get-the-boots-dirty work. How could I argue with their
priorities? Water is life.
Yes, I told him, we’re here to work.
“Let’s start with some wells”.
A few days later, our team was on site,
digging wells. A few weeks later, water access increased
five fold. While 500 people still had to wait in line
for water, it used to be 2,500.
I dropped by the village to see a new well
pump water for the first time. There were a horde of kids
hanging over the pumps, watching and giggling as the water
flowed out the spout. While this is not the best way to
manage a scarce resource, on that day, I could not care
less. It was all good.
And while I savoured the fresh cool taste
of water drawn deep, I knew I had done next to nothing
to make it happen, yet I was so irritatingly cheerful
you’d think that I dug the thing by hand.
Drew
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