Remember You are Half Water

"Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” – Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

A part of my program is storytelling. Participants create a story that has a conflict and no solution. Then they read it aloud and as a collective we ask questions, we define the boundaries, and we find solutions. The solutions are not from me, yet from the participants. One story in particular that was shared was a simple story which was a great metaphor for limited resources and wars.

Here is the story: There was a tortoise and lizard. The tortoise was carrying a bag of things around his neck. He dropped it. A lizard saw him dropped it and picked it up. The tortoise insisted it was his. The lizard said now it is his and left with the bag. As the tortoise was walking on the road, he found the bag again on the road and swung it around his neck and started to carry it again. The lizard saw him and was angry. They started to fight.

When I heard this story, it was respite from the other stories. It was a clever story that had some underlying messages about what is happening globally with regard to resources. In Kakuma, water is limited. Opiyo et al. (2015) noted that between 1950-2012, northwestern Kenya where

Kakuma is located in, has had extreme droughts.

On the compound, we are not immune to water shortages. Albeit, we do have water most of the time we want it.

Here is a small vignette of Staci’s world…

Taking a shower, rather a bucket shower is a time consuming and takes a lot of planning. First you need to wait until there is water. That could be in an hour, in minutes, at night, or anytime. One must be ready for the water because you never know when if/when it will come again. You put your jerry container/bucket under the tap and let it flow. Then you set it aside. You set it aside for the bucket shower extravaganza. If it is 100 degrees outside luke warm water will feel wonderful. At times, when water is limited, you have to decide which half of your body you want clean. For the most part, I don’t care because the minute you stop the bucket shower extravaganza, the dust quickly attaches to your body like a magnet. You are perpetually dirty. Access to clean drinking water is always available.

Here is a small vignette of a refugee’s world…

Water is rationed in Kakuma Refugee Camps. KANERE (2008), Kakuma’s local newsletter, asks why refugees are “subject to a water rationing system while staff members living in the four compounds (NGO, World Food Program, UNHCR, and police compounds) are given unlimited water?” They say, “In fact, the compounds account for 15% of total water extraction per day, while refugees account for 75% (10% is factored as loss). By contrast, the total population in the four compounds stands at an estimated 200 persons, or roughly 0.4% of the refugee population” (para. 10). Water is not the only inequity issue between the international staff, national staff, Turkana host community, and refugees. Nevertheless, this post will focus on water.

According to the Sphere Handbook (2016), a humanitarian charter and minimum guideline handbook, a refugee is allotted 20 liters/5 gallons per person per day. This allotment is for cooking, cleaning, consumption, and so on. For the Global North who take showers, on average a 5-minute shower consumes 10 gallons of water (Clift, Cuthbert, & Green, 2009). So hypothetically, if you were a refugee and used 10 gallons, you could not take a shower and not have any water for consumption, cooking and/or cleaning for another 3 days . It is even more relevant in the USA, check out this link http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/affordable-water-may-soon-dry-especially-live/

In 2000, my South African bought me a scrunchie puff ball and shower gel for Christmas. She said, “Staci, at the gym you take incredibly short showers and I thought that if you had this [puff ball/shower gel] you would take longer ones.” I was puzzled and thought perhaps I should bathe more. The reason I take incredibly quick showers is the fact I want to conserve water. So the next time, if you are entertaining to take a long shower, think about the water you have used. The amount of water you use is equivalent to a refugee ration for 1 week or so.

Umubyeyi (2012) also noted that access to water is limited, as well as, poverty, and disorganization play a role in the refugee water issue. She noted,

Large quantities of water are used to make illicit alcoholic beverages. Some women prefer to sell their ration to buy food for their children. If they do not manage to cheat the system to obtain more water, they then have very little to drink and cook and none to clean their homes, which become unsanitary. (para. 8)

In other words, people do things to survive. They prioritize and rationalize.

Here is a small vignette of a Turkana’s host community world…

Water is not rationed for the host community. In fact, water is not given to anyone who lives outside the camp (Umubyeyi, 2012). Countries that host refugees often choose remote areas like Turkana county because it often brings badly needed infrastructure (Rodgers, 2017). Has this refugee camp helped the Turkana community? Yes, and no. It has helped the economy and brought much needed infrastructure, however most Kenyans who live in this particular county live in poverty. Often spending much of their day fetching water.

So back to the tortoise and lizard story, the group that we were working with was predominately young men from South Sudan, Sudan, and Darfur. Our group met outside because there wasn’t a room to sit in. So we found shade and started to share our stories. I started to hear overflowing water and turned around. The enormous water tank was overflowing and was losing gallons of water by the minute. I stopped the discussion and said if we could get a staff person to stop the flowing water. We asked one of the staffers and he remarked it isn’t his problem, it is UNHCR. 15 minutes later, a staff person came over and shut off one of the valves and the water slowly stopped flowing after another 15 minutes.

By that time, someone had shared another story about the war in Sudan. I attempted to use the situation of the water as a metaphor but failed miserably. My co-facilitator and another participant understood and tried to convey my point, but it just seemed to frustrate the participants more. I was noting, we have things happening like the overflowing water or war and we have opportunities to help find solutions but we have a tendency to say “it’s not my problem.” How do we make it our problem so we can collectively fix it?

They wanted nothing to do with the discussion. My deep conviction, along with a chaser of desperation, I started to ask questions about their role is in Kakuma and what they can do as a collective to create a space for themselves in Kakuma. I said, “You have a voice in this conversation.” My co-facilitator asked a man, “Do you think you have a voice?” The man hesitates and his voice cracked, “That is a hard question. I cannot answer it.”

We attempted to end on the note that we can do something as a collective with problems in Kakuma. We don’t have to be the tortoise and lizard individually carrying the burden. We can collectively and share the burden, as well as, the resources. My perception was that I left the group with more despair than hope. And yet, I suppose when there is despair, hope seems to appear.

The next day, we started a new group. It was the same make-up of ethnic backgrounds and overwhelming South Sudanese, Darfurian, and Sudanese. I prayed we wouldn’t repeat the past two days. This time, hope appeared in way of a participant who was semi-fluent in English and fluent in Arabic. He was able to help support us in the translation. Today, we will work on our stories with this group. My hope is that we can co-create a space that all voices are heard, seen, and valued.

J

ust to note: I have a possibility to venture up to Maban, South Sudan at the end of Feb for a week. If things stabilize there, I will go and bring the project to Maban. In the group which I felt like a complete failure, one of the participants who was quite vocal of his despair about the situation, said to me before he left, “When you go to Maban, I will go with you and show you the safest way.”

The odds of him joining me is null, however if I go, he will be my north star, my reminder of the complexity of hope and despair. Insha'Allah (in Arabic if Allah wills it).