Empty Rivers

After living in Australia, I thought I knew what a drought was. And it's certainly a problem in Australia. But we don't have to buy water. We just treat it with respect.

In Tanzania, water is scarcer than anyone can possibly imagine. Rivers beds are dry and desolate looking. Fields are starved of water, cows are living on grass that hasn't seen rain in a long time. Families have to buy it by the bucket (around 20c US) and use it with great respect.

And because there is very little water, power is just as valuable. Tanzania uses hydro-electric power generated from the water rushing (or not) down the mountains. So when there is no water, there is no power.

Last year, the Tanzanian government was being re-elected, so the prospective new President and his party omitted to tell people how bad the water/ power situation was until he was elected in December 2005.

In late January 2006, it became very well known because they started power rationing. Everyone received a schedule which outlined who would have power when. This was meant to allow businesses and families to plan their work accordingly. And it could have worked ahad they stuck to the schedule. Instead, power went on and off in the most unpredictable fashion, usually for twelve hours at a time.

This has meant that many businesses just can't operate as they often have power in the middle of the night. If you can't afford or find a generator, you simply can't open your doors.

Last week we were told that we were moving from 12 hour a day power rationing to 24/7 power cuts. The damns are being blocked off to stop what little water there is from flowing. So any day now, families and businesses will have no power at all.

I don't know how this will affect the country - I can only begin to imagine. It will be cruel and difficult time for these people.

We are lucky at school because we have two big generators. We are only using one now but from next January we will use both. Were it not for these generators, we simply couldn't open the school. We couldn't fundraise without power for computers or the internet. We couldn't photocopy exams, have lights, boil water for the students to drink etc. etc.

We spend over US$50,000 per year on diesel for our generator as it's much more expensive to run a generator than it is to pay an Electricity Bill. But it's the only way that we can run our school, we don't have much of a choice. Just today we decided that we would have to find "generator sponsors" to help us pay for the diesel (that figure only covers the generators and doesn't include the US$2000 a week we spend on fuel for the school buses!

But at least we have the option of using our generators - most people over here don't. I don't know how they will get through this.

On Monday we will celebrate St Judes Day (though it's officially this Saturday 28th October. I have written a play that my students will perform to illustrate how St Jude works. St Jude as the patron saint for hopeless cases/ lost causes, helps people who are desperate and don't know where else to turn to.

the play is about a village which hasn't seen water for six months. When I asked my students (they are around ten years old) how this would affect a village, they told me people would be hungry because there would be no maize or rice to eat. They told me they would be forced to drink dirty water and use that same water to wash with, and as a result they would get sick with typhoid. They told me how the animals would die and people would be left with no income. This is a very real scenario for these children - it didn't take much imagination for them to conceive how this might and does happen.

The play closes on a happy note. The villagers ask the village chairman and an old wise man for advice before they go to the local priest who advises them to say a prayer to St Jude and ask him for help. And sure enough it helps - the next day the rains come.

Nice ending though I have to admit, it feels a little like a hoax to tell the children that praying to St Jude will always help, much as I wish it were true. Some things seem beyond a simple prayer. but you never do know I suppose!

I know I say it almost as often as I think it, but I come from a very lucky part of the world where our children have no idea about drought and hunger and disease. And although the children here have a great appreciation for such things, it seems sad to me that they should have to know about it at such an early age. I don't know why Africa, one of the first settled places in the world, has been foresaken. This beautiful continent is drying up and no-one knows why. And maybe St Jude can help and maybe not. I hope someone up there can - Africa needs a lot of help.
Keep them in your thoughts.