[CR] A lifetime of difficulties with water

The argument I had with my mother last night made me wonder if we will ever stop fighting about this question: “Why didn’t you fetch water? Are you not going to bathe today?”

We have had this quarrel since I was old enough to carry a tin of water on top of my head. But the fight never stops, because I am too lazy to go to the tap and wait for three hours for water that flows out like urine. I also hate observing the other women fighting with one another about who came first.

For as long as I can remember, I have woken up every day before sunrise and walked four kilometers with my two older sisters and empty 25-liter tins to fetch water. When I was young, I would carry a 10-liter tin. We would stay at the tap for three or four hours, waiting for our turn to come. Most often, we didn’t notice the time passing because everyone was occupied. I would play rocks, the goal of which was to stack stones before somebody hit you with a ball, or jump rope with the other children. My sisters would be busy gossiping about the latest scoop in the village. Men would be playing cards or chart, a traditional game, similar to checkers. Other women would be busy washing laundry, while the teenage boys ran after the girls. Our grumbling stomachs were always the reminder that we were ready to go home. We would then sit down because we had no more energy to play. When our tins were finally filled, we would climb back over hills and valleys towards home. On the way back, there would be no more talking; we were too tired from our hunger. Sometimes I sat and rested while walking back. Sometimes, the tin would fall, and I would have to return back to the tap or face my mother’s quarreling at home.

When I was in school, the thought of going home made me sad, knowing I would have go to the tap, on an empty stomach, where I would be pushed by the elders, who never wanted to queue. I hated my life.

Sometimes, when I saw birds singing in the sky, I wished that I was one of them because, then, I would be able to fly away from my dilemmas. I wouldn’t have to be awake in the earliest hours during the winter months, to queue in the tap line. I wouldn’t have to walk the long distance, barefoot, to school. I would just fly around the sky, watching people, like my sisters, on the ground. I still, today, look up at the birds with a heavy heart.

I keep hoping that my situation will improve. Our ward counselors – the people in our community that we elect to stand up for us – and the South African government keep on promising a better life for all of us. They have been making promises since I was one-year-old, but they are always empty promises. Once they get voted into office, they sit back in their squeezing office chairs, while we queue for water.

As a teenager, I was too shy to carry a tin on my head or push a wheelbarrow, fearing what my boyfriend and friends would say, but my mother insisted that I go to fetch water.

Now, as a 25-year-old, I still have to push my wheelbarrow and wait for hours before I can bathe or cook. I still have to go to the tap and listen to the gossip and watch other kids play rope and rocks. I still have to go to the tap after a long day at work, sometimes winding under starlight on my way home. I still can only use half of the water in a five-liter tin when I bathe. I still wash my dishes with only a little water. I still have to take my laundry to wash at the tap. I still have to go to the dry river and dig a well when the water at the tap runs out for weeks on end. I still love the rainy season because I can use well water to bathe and to wash my laundry. The well is close to my home. Water is plentiful, there, and I don’t have to queue. I still hate it that the tap is so far away, that I feel exhausted like the donkeys some people hire to carry their water, paying R1, 50c per 25-liter tin. I still hate to hire the donkeys, because I feel uneasy when I see them being beaten up by a xiyepu, a sharp stick with a whip, when they walk slowly. I still love to visit my sister, where I don’t have to push the wheelbarrow, and I get a chance to bathe in a big bathtub, and I don’t have to boil warm water over firewood or a stove. I just had to turn on either the warm or the cold tap. It makes me feel like princess.  But I always know, at the end of the day, I will have to go home and queue in the line again.

I guess I have to get used to the argument that I have with my mother, because it looks like it’s going to be a lifetime quarrel.