As we drove down the valley, the truck carrying our equipment and material such as solar panels, batteries, heavy cables, bricks, fawas cantered at roughly 10 degrees. One slip, and the truck may end up in the bottom of the valley.
The bus carrying the students cannot drive down the valley, hence we walk for about 2 kilometres to get down to the valley. Imagine a long, V shaped valley, covered with green fields of banana, cassava, sorghum, corn, …, doted with small adobe houses. Complete with a small stream tuning the length of the valley. It is nothing short of idyllic. Many would love to live there.
The really soon hits you. Kids fletch water from the stream.
Adults and kids alike carry 20 litre, 10 litre, 5 litre jerry cans up the slope to their homes. If you are lucky, you have a bicycle to help. You cannot actually ride the bicycle - the paths are too steep and the water too heavy to paddle. The wheels of the bicycle serve to reduce the friction of the road - you still have to push very hard while keeping the heavy load balanced on the bike. Most carry the jerry cans on their heads, even the kids. Try carrying 20 kilograms, or even 10, on your head for 1-2 kilometers. It will hurt after a couple hundred meters, if not earlier. How the 10 year old kids do it is a mystery to me.
This is the water that they use to wash, give the cow to drink, cook, and drink. Such is idyllic village life.
In many places in the world such as Hong Kong, the power lines are considered an eyesore, particularly when you are trying to take photographs of the beautiful nature. Hence there is no such problem. You can point your camera in any direction and you will get a perfect photograph. Blue sky, white clouds and green fields, dotted with small adobe houses.
But no electricity. How does one survive these days without water and electricity?
Adobe. It sounds earthly, almost romantic, to live in a house made of mud. But the realty is much uglier. Here the mud is not fired into bricks. It may not even be formed into a rectangular block and dried under the sun. It may simply be plastered, wet, onto a frame made of raw tree branches, and allowed to dry. It begins to flake and fall apart as soon as it starts to dry.
Cassava is one of the staple foods here. Cassava may conjure up images of sweet tapioca pudding, bubble tea, and other treats. Here the cassava is eaten raw, often unwashed. Or dried, pounded into a powder, and baked into a bland, tasteless cake.
Such is idyllic village life. In the 21st century. How is it different from a hundred, two hundreds ago? Or even much earlier?
No comments:
Post a Comment