Join Us
Spontaneous act highlights life-changing effects of water projects
A Glimmer of Hope recently opened a new water project in the impoverished, rural village of Geja Gedamba about 20 miles south of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
It was a festive scene as people had come from all over to witness the unveiling of the community's newest and most precious resource.
For those from A Glimmer of Hope in attendance, the singing and dancing painted a familiar picture, one that they had observed at inaugurations throughout the country.
What happened next, however, was something nobody had ever seen before.
A woman walked up to the distribution point, filled her clay jug with water and then defiantly cast it off her back smashing it on the ground.
As it lay in pieces at her feet, she was asked why she had done it:
"I was very tired of carrying [these] pots for hours and long distances. I and the women in this area led such a life for years. Now the situation has been changed and I will not allow this pot to remain on my back. I don't want to hand down this burden to my children. This should be stopped here."
Then, she broke into a dance and the crowd erupted. By the time things settled down, the woman was gone.
Intrigued by what had taken place, A Glimmer of Hope's communications officer Hailegebriel Endeshaw set out to track the woman down and to get her story.
He did and here it is:
I arrived at Geja Gedamba at around 8am on a Tuesday morning and found the woman - Azalech Sembeta - washing dishes in front of her thatched hut; in and of itself, an unusual site in a rural village.
She told me she is 40-years-old and a mother of six; three sons and three daughters ranging in age from 12 to 24. When I commented that I hadn't seen any of her children, she proudly told me that they were in school.
"Before, my children spent their time waiting in line with all the other local children at springs to collect water. They always wanted to go to school but I was not able to send them as it was very difficult for me to fetch water by myself. One of them would have to wait their turn at the spring and then the others would help me to carry pots home," Azalech said.
When the children weren't helping with their mother with the water gathering, they were carrying out other necessary chores around the house. They simply did not have time to attend the nearest school which is a two-hour walk away. This situation was repeated in virtually every home in the village.
On the morning of my visit, Azalech told me that the new water point had completely changed her way of life. She didn't have to wake up as early and she still had time to get her children ready for school. And, there were many other benefits too.
"We used to go out in the evening to line up for water at the nearest [unprotected] spring. It was usually late in the morning of the next day before we were able to collect our water and make the three-hour walk back to our home. Many times I made this walk with a child resting against my bosom and a water pot on my back. I can not tell you how difficult this was and yet this was how we were all raising our children. Some of us used to filter the water using our netela (shawls). I can't tell you what we felt when we see worms and black dregs on the cloth. But we had no choice and were often sick with abdominal ailments," Azalech said.
Even after she got the water home, there were still challenges:
"We had to use the water as economically as possible. We did not wash our bodies. We were not even able to wash our hands before our meals. Every day I used to put out a quart of water for all of my children so that they could wash their faces - nothing more than that. Every child knew how to use that amount of water economically."
Today, Azalech and her neighbors are living a different life.
"Now, thanks to you, we are able to wash our bodies, our clothes, our dishes ... everything," she said. "And, you don't see children in the village in the morning any more. That's when they go to school."
Having clean water nearby is also allowing the women of the village more time to grow food in their gardens which is also contributing to the health and welfare of their children. Some are closer to the water point than others but in Azalech's case, it has turned a six mile walk into one that measures just over 100 yards.
- Hailegebriel Endeshaw