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NELLY'S STORY: SHORTER JOURNEYS, LIGHTER LOADS
Nelly Chavarria wakes at dawn – often earlier. For years, the first thing she did upon waking was to take a ten-minute walk to the nearby stream, either alone or accompanied by her daughters, to fill up three-gallon plastic buckets with water.
Usually, she went barefoot – sometimes she wore the thin plastic sandals that are ubiquitous on the feet of women and girls in her Nicaraguan village. Bucket by bucket, Nelly and her daughters gathered water from a stream that was contaminated with animal waste from the ganadero, or cow breeder, living upstream. Four or five times a day, they repeated this process to bring water back to their family.
As Nelly now reflects on this all-too-familiar journey, she looks at her callused feet, and motions toward her back and knees, illustrating the physical effects of such exertion.
“My daughters would complain about how heavy the buckets were,” she says. “Sometimes they would fall down and the water went everywhere.” They would just have to go back and refill what had spilled.
For those of us who live in developed cities, it’s hard to fathom living without a grocery store within two minutes of our homes. What if you had to walk ten minutes to a different neighborhood just to replenish your water supply?
Water for Waslala came to Nelly’s village of San Benito in late 2008 and built a gravity-fed system that safely transports clean water from a natural spring in the nearby mountains to the school and households. Nelly jumped at the chance to install a tapstand in her yard. All she had ever known was carrying water to her house from the stream – she never dreamed of accessing clean water in her backyard. With a tapstand, she would be able to cook and wash dishes without worrying about getting sick or running out of water.
Nelly is only 39 years old, but in listening to her life story, you would think she was much older. Having lived through the brutal civil war pitting Sandinistas against Contras in the 1980s, Nelly possesses the type of wisdom that comes from being thrown into adulthood at an early age. After her father was killed in the war when Nelly was 12, she started helping her mother by supporting her 13 siblings. She took on work as a domestica, or cook, in another household, married a man from San Benito at 16, and has rapidly grown up ever since.
Many families in San Benito are just like Nelly’s, living their entire lives without knowing what it’s like to turn on a water tap in their own household. Water is just another absent utility, like electricity, that the communities here have struggled without. Spending significant portions of their days just walking to get contaminated water, most Waslalans see the inconvenience of wasted time as a generally accepted way of life.
The mountainous terrain makes water access all the more difficult here. Unfortunately, building wells to access groundwater is not an option. Gravity-fed systems, like the WfW system, are the optimal solution, transporting clean water safely from its high-altitude source to the village. The systems require leadership, engineering expertise, and funding to build.
In communities like San Benito, residents are energized to build and maintain such a system, but lack the necessary leadership, expertise, and funding to get started. WfW steps in to help make their vision of potable water a reality.
People like Nelly no longer have to waste their time walking to get contaminated water. They ultimately live healthier, more prosperous, and more fruitful lives. Water does not only nourish; it jump starts an entire village.
From the first day Nelly turned on her new tapstand, her children jumped and danced in the spray of refreshing, life-giving water. Her health, productivity, and happiness with the system has only grown since installation. WfW hopes to make clean, convenient water more of a normal occurence for those in Waslala.
Nelly’s days still begin early. With her daughters still in slumber, she greets the sun and looks forward to brighter days ahead for them. With less-callused feet, she now walks across her home for a pitcher of clean water and pours herself a glass. She feels refreshed. She feels thankful.
Thanks to WfW, Nelly and her family are well on their way to living more dignified lives of purpose.
