A Water Story

From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom Have you ever noticed how much water it takes to flush a toilet? How about to wash the dishes? It wasn’t until I had to carry all of the water I wanted to use for the day in a bucket on my head that I realized just how precious water is. “Amazi,” Kinyarwanda for water, might be the most important word at Agahozo Shalom. Though running water is in the plans for the very near future, it has been a scarce luxury thus far. In case you should find yourself in a similar situation (perhaps water frequently stops running in University City, Manhattan, or Waltham) you may find the following very helpful, so feel free to take notes. One must join the line of kids at the water tower in the center of the village and attempt to make conversation using all of the Kinyarwanda you know, which limits my conversation to “good afternoon,” “do you want to dance,” and “I like cows,” (cows are a very important part of Rwandan culture and are featured in most songs, dances, poems, and friendly greetings). Then fill up a bucket and somehow manage to get it back to your house (I prefer to carry it on my head though I am always subject to much pointing and laughing- look at the “muzungo” (white person) carrying her bucket with water helplessly sloshing over the sides…). Now you can boil some for drinking (though we also bring drinking water from a nearby spring), you can shower with it by standing in the bucket and pouring it over your head with a cup (donated by Urban Outfitters!), and you can wash your clothes by scrubbing furiously with a bar of soap only to find that you have somehow created more stains than you have taken out. Be sure to save the leftover soapy water and pour it into the back of your toilet so that it can flush. Now will you think twice before leaving the faucet running while brushing your teeth tonight? Though water from the tap is scarce, water from the sky has been very plentiful. Most days start out enveloped in thick clouds of fog but are clear and sunny by the time activities begin at 8am. Nonetheless it is quite common for dark clouds to roll in unexpectedly and pour out rain furiously for a short 10 minutes during which no one dares step outside. The rain echoes loudly on the roofs and turns the red earth into soupy clay rivers. Moments after the rain the sun is back and the distant hills are clearer than ever before with green patchwork fields and glistening tin roofs visible for miles. The lack of running water might be surprising to you or me, but only 10 out of the 125 kids had running water back home, and even fewer had electricity. At Agahozo Shalom, they receive three plentiful meals a day (almost always rice and beans with the occasional pineapple treat), all the school supplies they need, and new clothes, not to mention the soon to open educational and extracurricular facilities. And they don’t take this opportunity for granted. The kids here are truly exceptional and have already blown me away with their musical and artistic talents and their thirst for knowledge. They know they have been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance at Agahozo, and they have big dreams for themselves. At a fantastic four hour New Years celebration organized by the kids, many shed tears of happiness as the clock struck twelve and a new year of promise dawned. From First weeks at Agahozo Shalom “Sometimes it was so hard, I never thought I would reach the year 2009,” one girl told me. “And now I am here, at this village. I feel like I can do anything. It is like a miracle.” I think we’ll live without the running water. :-)