“So much depends on a…”

A few weeks back, we lost water for about five days at the hospital where I live. Not only did that put a crimp in the operating room schedule, it also made me appreciate just how dependent I am on running water, as I hauled buckets back and forth from my rondavel. Of course, people in Itipini haul gallons of water every day, as do hundreds of millions of other people (women) around the world and that puts my five days in perspective.

The water in Itipini comes from one of two taps. It is city water and is clean and good - I drink it - but sometimes the water pressure fails and the line of buckets at the tap lengthens while the women stand around and wait, sometimes for quite a long time.

I took this picture a few weeks back. It reminds me of the william carlos williams’ poem that begins, “So much depends on a red wheelbarrow.” I tried to write something similar for Itipini but my muse deserted me after “So much depends on a golden water tap.”