Praying for Rain

"Upon us all, a little rain must fall..." --Led Zeppelin, The Rain Song

After a late start in December, the rains stopped just as suddenly as they began. Since the New Year there has only been one or two real solid rains in my village. The maize is starting to dry out, as you can see in this photo.

It's not just dry either. It has been hot and windy as well, further drying the maize. A common past time here is looking at the dark clouds in the distance, and hoping for a thunderstorm. But other than a few overcast and muggy days, the clouds haven't produced anything significant for us.

The kids and I prepared my garden bed for planting this week, and now I'm just waiting for a little rain before I get the seeds in the ground. I could just water them in by hand, but the linthumbu (red driver ants) are roaming around in large numbers, and with it being so dry, I'm worried about creating a little oasis that might attract them to my yard again. So I'm waiting for one good storm.

It's crazy to think that last year at this time, there were floods in southern Malawi. People died in high flood waters, rivers overflowed, bridges washed out, and many people lost their homes and crops. Now we are in danger of the other extreme. But it's not too late yet.

So here in Malawi, we're all praying for rain.

Madzi Alipo!

I've got water!

When I got home from school today I checked the tap, and there was water! Sweet, cool water. So I spent the next 20 minutes or so filling all my buckets. Now I have water to bathe, cook, wash clothes, wash dishes and drink for days! I might go buy sweet potatoes again because now I have enough water to boil them without worrying about all the wasted water.

I don't know if this is a temporary water-abundance or not, so I am going to stay in water-conserving mode, at least for a while. But it's nice to be able to take a real bucket bath again, and I'm looking forward to wearing clean clothes.

Madzi kulibe

I've been saying that phrase a lot lately-- no water. I get all my water from an outside tap. It's really convenient, except when it goes dry. Which happens a lot, especially lately.

Not even one drop

This is Dry Season, so we're not really expecting rain. But after the floods in January, we received very low levels of rainfall during the remainder of the season. So now water levels are low. Bonus-- the low water levels are also affecting power generation from the dams, so there are more power outages lately. Like right now, in fact.

For the last five days I have only been able to get about 2-3 liters of water each day. (A liter is about a quart). That is just enough for cooking and drinking. Luckily I had a small stockpile, but it's dwindling. Of course drinking water and cooking take priority. But for everything else, I need to make some hard choices.  And get creative.

I've skipped bathing a couple times, I've got my dishwashing down to once a day with only about two liters of water, and I'm postponing laundry until further notice (except for a few items which I managed to wash and rinse in about a four liters of water.) And forget about mopping. That is on the very bottom of my water priority list. Tomorrow I am going to try using the leftover cooking water from my sweet potatoes to make my porridge. Every little bit counts when your tap is dry.

Sadly, my garden is pretty much finished until Rainy Season, since I don't have enough excess water to keep it going. I uprooted my dead onions this evening and added them to my makeshift compost pile which I started in one of the now empty beds. There are a few potatoes and carrots left to harvest, but that is pretty much it.

I do have an alternate water source. There is a borehole about fifteen minutes away, which isn't bad except it feels a lot farther when I am carrying a bucket of water on my head. Which is definitely worth it for drinking water, but I don't wanna think about how many trips I would need to get enough water for everything else. It's much easier to just conserve my limited water a little bit longer. Still, if I need to, I could do it. And I'm sure my neighbors would take pity on me and help me out. But they would have a good laugh at the azungu carrying water on her head first!