Partie I de II - difficultés: la pluie, c'est la vie (et autres impossibilités).

Part I of II - Difficulties: Rain is Life (and other impossibilities).

Water. Eau. Mayi.

How can people live without water? If anyone out there has the answer to that question, feel free to post it below. I can't seem to figure that one out. We can live without electricity. Sure, given that we've been living with it for a pretty significant chunk of time and are really completely dependent on it, a sudden lack thereof might render life a tad bit difficult at first. I certainly wouldn't be blogging right now. But it's totally doable - when it gets dark, light candles, fires, or oil lamps. Cook over fire. Done. But we absolutely can not under any circumstances live without water.

During my first week here, the morning after I arrived at the Kulungu household the water disappeared from the pipes shortly after I had showered in the morning. They did not have running water again until Friday night after I had already left for the weekend. As mentioned, they keep huge reserves of water in barrels, buckets, and plastic containers because this happens so frequently. But even as much water as they store, which is used for cooking, drinking, bathing, cleaning, and washing, does not last a family of eleven a terribly long time! By Thursday we were so low on water that I couldn't bear the thought of using any more of what there was left and did not shower. I just washed my face and asked the girls if they had any perfume. However, since I've arrived near the end of the rainy season, we were in luck. It rains every night. As the water still had not returned by Thursday evening, all of the buckets and containers and barrels were set outside overnight and filled with rainwater.

Bless the rains down in Africa.

We were good to go on Friday morning with water a-plenty. L'eau est là! But what the hell do they do in the dry season? I asked Pascal the following week. I didn't get much of an answer. He paused and vaguely responded that they do what they can in the dry season. That's that. They do what they can.

IN THIS DAY AND AGE, THERE SHOULD BE NO ONE ON THIS EARTH WHO LIVES WITHOUT ELECTRICITY AND RUNNING WATER UNLESS THEY DO SO VOLUNTARILY. Period, the end. But this is the life of a people who live in a non-functioning state. Period, the end. There is not even a fundamental level of fully funcitoning infrastructure. The electricity cuts in and out 24/7. There is no waste collection/disposal. The roads disintegrate by the milisecond. Et l'eau ne coule pas - water does not run from people's taps... those of them who have taps. The taps, as Kinois (what Kin's residents call themselves) say, are on strike.

Mwana ya mayi, or child water carriers in Lingala, roam the streets by the thousands selling Eau Pure - 'pure' water that I've been advised against drinking - in 500 ml plastic sacs. They carry huge clear plastic bags about half the size of Glad garbage bags full of these small sacs of water on their heads, dashing in between cars and taxi-buses (of which, by the way, a large number are VW vans from the '70s) when traffic is frozen and walking up and down Kinshasa's streets morning, noon, and night. You can hear them everywhere you go, calling out 'eaupure! eaupure!' and making kissy-sounds to get peoples' attention. This is one of the many ways in which hundreds of thousands of Kinois families supplement their income (or, rather, their lack thereof). Families often have several small sources of income, actually; from universities to factories, it is not uncommon for even those Congolese who are employed to go months upon months without their wages. Families sell bread and/or a few different types of produce, such as garlic and onions, outside their homes. They take in sewing. They leave early in the morning to search all day for odd jobs and day labour. Unemployment. I have already mentioned this, but it stares me in the face every single day. The abject poverty in Congo has its population living on edge. On certain main streets in Kin, more during the evening and into the night, the tension in the atmosphere is thick and electric with desparity. Kinshasa's youth and young adults have no jobs and can't afford of school fees. They are restless. Many, of course, end up in illicit trades, motivated by the need to provide for themselves and their families. An overwhelming amount of mwana ya mayi are also shegué, homeless street kids.

Yesterday my uncle and I stopped on the side of the road to buy some fruit and he was approached by a presentable young man who looked to be around 19. He was clean cut and very polite. Initially my uncle sort of dismissed him, assuming that he had approached to ask for money (which happens just about any time you step out of a vehicle or a store), but he respectfully and firmly urged that my uncle listen; he was asking for work. Fabrise explained to John that he is studying pedagogy but has had to drop out of school because he can not pay his tuition, and is willing to do any kind of labour in order to be able to afford to continue his studies. Serendipity. John and I had just been discussing what we, in our positions of privilege, can do to help those around us without. My uncle made a quick phone call to a man he works with, who told him that he should send Fabrise to his office on Monday morning and he would find Fabrise a job. Just like that. John wrote him a note to bring with him and Fabrise seemed to be incredibly grateful :) This afternoon, my uncle called over to find out whether Fabrise had showed up, and was advised that he has been put on a one-month trial period to see how he works out. Success!