WaterStories

On Shower Curtains

// June 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Travel Planning

It was an offhand line in an otherwise lovely email: “Bring a shawl or a sari as a shower curtain for bathing outdoors.”

I’m sorry, what?

It’s not that bathing outdoors is a problem. It’s not that I’m skittish about that. I’ve bathed outdoors before…well, no, I haven’t, actually. But I’m not AFRAID of THAT. It’s just that if a shower curtain sari is something I need to BRING, it means it wasn’t there in the first place. Which means I could have potentially been splashing around butt-naked in public.

See, these are the moments when The Fear gets in. Those moments when you realize you can’t take ANYTHING for granted.

Here, a bathroom includes a toilet, sink and shower/bath. Anywhere else in the world, this is not necessarily the case. There may not even be a room for bathing whatsoever. It might be BYOSC (Bring Your Own Shower Curtain) to the freaking village pump for all I know!

Preparing for this trip has been an exercise in examining my own assumptions.

Here, I can drink the water that comes out of a tap. Here, it’s entirely appropriate for women to wear tank tops and shorts (and if the teenagers at the mall are any indication, pants of any kind are now optional). Here, I can go out at night. I can go running by myself. The longest line I ever have to stand in is maybe ten minutes. If I want something, I go get it. If a mosquito bites me, it itches but it won’t give me fever, chills and explosive diarrhea.

In about ten minutes, I’m going camping. It’s an intentional little exercise, part to field-test some of my equipment, part to remove the flushable-toilet-coloured-glasses I appear to be wearing.

Cultural Studies

// June 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // The Project, WaterStories

“You have not talked to me all day,” Evans Chiyenge says to me in his beautiful lilting accent.

It’s true. I hadn’t. This morning when arrived at CAWST, I’d tried to get away with the style of North American coldness that is so commonplace here, it’s no longer rude. The kind where you arrive, nod once as a vague catch-all greeting to everyone in the room, sit down and stare at your pen.

That stuff doesn’t wash with Evans.

“You Westerners are very time-conscious and money-conscious,” he said later in the group discussion. “Where I come from, people value relationships. You must show concern for the people’s family. Ask after their health. You must talk about things totally unrelated to your business, then they will cooperate.”

At lunch, I decided to drop all my afternoon plans and share a meal with my soon-to-be-host in Zambia.

“In Zambia, every conversation begins with family and ends with family,” Tal, CAWST’s technical advisor for Africa, told me later. So, my cheeks hot with the realization that I’d already been terribly rude, I asked about Evans’ family.

I learned he has four biological children and four adopted children, all of them AIDS orphans from cousins or siblings. “Everyone in Zambia is affected by the AIDS. Even if you are not infected, you are affected.”

He tells me with pride about his daughters, all of whom he says are breel-yant. He thanks God for that – he wouldn’t have been able to afford their school fees if they hadn’t been awarded the scholarships that have since allowed them to study medicine, accounting and evironmental engineering in the US.

“We haven’t been as lucky with the boys,” he says, crinkling up his nose.

One is many years behind in his schooling. “Because he is lazy. All he wants to do is watch soccer. I got rid of the TV. If I didn’t, he would be watching soccer right now.”

The eldest son is in jail, serving fifteen years for drug-related charges. Evans’ wife, a lawyer, will try to get him out next year. I was shocked at the length of the jail term, but Evans says it’s been good for him. “He was always so rebellious. When his parents died, he wouldn’t listen to us. ‘You are not my parents,’ he would say. Now he has changed.”

Evans has a serious face that turns boyish when he smiles. He is over 50 but looks barely a day over 30 – too young for his ‘last-born’ son to be seventeen years old. He lives in Lusaka, but says he’ll make sure to be in Ndola when we are there. This is no small feat for Evans – he’s traveled nine out of the past twelve months getting the new Manzi (Water) Centre up and running, and training people in six other African countries. He is tired, but proud of what they’d already accomplished.

I stand to leave as the afternoon’s group shuffles in and sits down. I offer Evans my hand, thanking him for speaking with me. He lets go of my hand, reaches around me and pulls me into a hug.

Wine For Water Event Report

// June 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // Wine For Water

I spent the day at CAWST taking part in their annual Learning Exchange – a gathering of engineers, project managers and volunteers from CAWST’s network all over the world. HIV/AIDS dominated the day’s sessions, but Wine for Water was the talk of the breaks.

Everyone’s eyes went wide when they learned how much we generated in one evening. “You want a job?” someone said. (I don’t think they were kidding.)

Wine for Water, in its original conception, was a little rent-raiser for Melanie The Volunteer. As I’ve said before, your mortgage payments don’t just stop because you’re off saving the world. But I never expected more than 20 people and maybe fifteen hundred bucks.

My expectations were spectacularly off the mark.

We generated over $7,000 – more than FOUR TIMES what I’d anticipated. At the final tally, we had 48 guests, including CAWST CEO Camille Dow-Baker and some of Calgary’s most affluent and generous citizens. We had more than thirty auction items donated, one item selling for a whopping $1,650 at the live auction. Our event sponsors were floored – they had no idea it was going to be that well-attended or that successful.

To be honest, none of us did.

Generating $7,000 was beyond my imagination and it’s now left me with a bit of a conundrum. As I said, it was intended as a wee little rent-raiser to help me cover my costs, and so when I say “This is bigger than me,” I mean it. What we created is way larger in scope than any of us intended and I no longer feel comfortable using the funds for myself.

So, now I’m in the process of figuring out what to do with this amazing, powerful chunk of change. (I use the word ‘change’ intentionally.)

One of the ideas is to put it towards supporting the as-yet-unfunded Nepal portion of the project. I spoke with the Nepalese contact today and he’d be thrilled to have us come and tell his country’s part of the story.

However, I had another idea over the weekend, which basically consisted of a series of insights going in this direction: Why is it only these countries? Why is it only two artists working in two media (words and photos)? What about a network of artists documenting this story in different forms all over the world?

Suffice it to say this falls into the Big Ideas That Need Time To Brew category.

Regardless, I wanted to share all that in the name of transparency. And I’ll continue to do so as my thoughts and ideas clarify, but I have to say, NOT making rent has never felt so good!

What The Bleep Am I Doing?

// June 4th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Travel Planning

We’re at T-minus five-weeks-and-one-day until we leave and I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing right now. Seriously. How does one prepare for a two-month, two-country, two-season virgin voyage to the Third World?

The only thing anyone seems to be able to offer me is: ‘DIDJA GETCHER SHOTS?’ And while that is 100% valid and yes-I’m-on-it, vaccination won’t really help me in a day-to-day I’m-in-the-middle-of-Africa sense. (more…)

Final-Final (We Swear!) Itinerary

// May 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Travel Planning

10 JUL 09  -  FRIDAY

LV CALGARY INTL AB 21:35           08HR 50MIN

11 JUL 09  -  SATURDAY

AR LONDON HEATHROW 13:25
DRINK TEA, EAT CRUMPETS
LV LONDON HEATHROW 19:05 10HR 50MIN (more…)

First World Problems

// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // First World Water, WaterStories

As the honeymoon of ‘OMG I’M GOING TO AFRICA!’ wears off and the reality of ‘OMG How Am I Going To Pay My Mortgage While Working For Free?’ kicks in, my concerns strike me as a little tacky in light of people who DON’T HAVE HOMES in the first place.

Maybe I could take on some freelance work while I’m over there. Nothing says irony like writing about condo developments while living in a dirt hut in Zambia. (more…)

This? Is a Biosand Filter

// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Water 101

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Waterstories Update: ITINERARY

// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Travel Planning

After weeks of backing-and-forthing with a guy named Blessed in Zambia and Mr. Vasamalai and Mr. Krishnamurthy in southern India, we now have a plan for our travel this summer. (more…)

WaterStories Update

// May 20th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Travel Planning

Today began with a meeting with the woman from the NGO, where my questions included: Did I just agree to work for free for two years…and will I get shot while I’m doing it? (more…)