13 October 2005 - 14:44
My water is finally back on. Wa-hoo!
After observing all of the destruction caused by the recent rains and subsequent flooding, I noticed something that I found interesting, and slightly amusing – the poorest people in Tidjikja might have actually come out on top in this situation, which is not something that normally happens ANYWHERE, much less so in the developing world...
The poorest people in Tidjikja are the laborers, whose families live on the outskirts of town in the sand dunes. When the water came, it rushed through the center of town, in the valley where most of the people live. It didn’t even get close to the houses on the outskirts of town. And even if it did, the poor people don’t have walls that could be knocked over. And they don’t have running water, so while the rest of us scrambled to find sources of water to drink and cook with in the days following the flood because it knocked out the water system (twice), they went on with their daily lives, collecting water from nearby wells, just like they did before the town flooded. In fact, after all that water, the wells probably had a bit more water in them, making it easier to pull. And the poorest people don’t have businesses and boutiques, so none of their shops got ruined like so many along the seasonal river. And if the water leaked into their homes, they probably didn’t have too many expensive possessions that could be ruined by a little rain anyways.
Since there was so much damage to houses and walls, there’s a lot of repair work being done in town. And it’s the poor laborers who are doing it – the flooding brought them some extra income. So this mini-disaster, if nothing else, leveled the playing field, if just a little. And maybe it taught a few people that if you have less “stuff”, that also means you have less to lose…
