After an avalanche of requests, our blog is now going interactive. Now you all have a chance to help us solve our water problem. Let me explain.
In theory we should have no water problems at all. About 90kms from Ingwavuma, at Jozini, there is a giant lake/reservoir. And there is the infrastructure to pump this to us. But not a drop reaches us. There are various rumours that offer explanation. One is political – that the municipality want to shut down Ingwavuma. They want the population to move to Bhambanana (20 km closer to Jozini; but uglier than Medusa and horribly hot because not on the mountain).
An alternative explanation exists. This is that the municipality owes millions of Rand to the local electricity company. As a result they are unwilling to supply the electricity required to operate the pumps at Jozini. Being more swayed by cock-up over conspiracy, I think this is the more plausible.
This leaves us with two sources of water. The first comes out of our taps in our house. H20 for the hospital, and ipso facto (only bit of Latin I now know, other than agricola, so must be used) our house, is pumped up from the nearby Pongola river. This has two big drawbacks. Firstly, it is not very clean. This is because communities live upstream and likely contaminate it with… I’ll stop there. Anyway, we use tap water for washing and cooking. And, when desperate, we also drink it. After boiling it. Though it still tastes disgusting.
The second drawback is that occasionally, the water pumped is very muddy. This is usually a prelude to losing water for a couple of days. Despite being the rainy season, we are currently out of tap water.
And so we arrive at our second source of water – our jojo. Each of the properties at the hospital has a 50 litre container. These are about 12ft high and green. They collect water off the roof and store it in the tank. Giving us a very reliable source of ‘fresh’ drinking water.
Worry not. I have not forgotten about my promise of interactivity. I am getting there. Be patient.
Our house was painted two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the workmen decided to paint number 130 in the rainy season (it rains most days at the moment). They didn’t mention to us about their plan. And they didn’t discuss the wisdom of painting the roof. Furthermore, they didn’t remember to disconnect the pipe leading to the drinking water.
Well, the inevitable happened – 50 litres of water mixed with paint toxins.
The good news is that I have now emptied the jojo. The bad news is that the emptying process revealed that the bottom is covered in about 4-5 inches of mud with lots of dead insects and other ‘organic matter’. So the issue is what to do next.
‘Clean it’, I hear you shouting. ‘How?’ I shout back. One option is for me to try and get inside the jojo. Let’s call this the Roger Toulson/Sir Thomas More option (i.e. only to be contemplated by the lunatic martyr). It has a man hole cover at the top. But lowering myself down the twelve feet would be very hard. It would then take sometime to try and scoop the mud out and wash the bottom and sides. It is very hot. And the air is smelly.
Option two is to try and get a brush. But no long brush exists. So I will need to try and design something to do the job. Not easy. And highly likely to result in things falling into the jojo. So I foresee options two and one merging.
Option three is to try and find someone else to do the job. But now I find myself becoming a bit Gandhilike. Am I really happy with somebody else cleaning our latrine/ disgusting jojo?
Option four is to let the rain fill the tank again and resume drinking.
So now you get to offer advice. What should be done?
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