Transcript

SHELOT MASITHI

Back then, in the years spanning from 2012 and up until 2017, we experienced severe water shortages.

I was always frustrated whenever I left my house and to school and from school to home because I was always worried about water. What if tomorrow there won’t be water? Do we have enough buckets to conserve water for ourselves when there’s no water? And it happened that we ended up experiencing a water shortage in 2016 for a month.

The water buckets that we had were not enough. And the water we reserved or we conserved for crisis like that ran out mid month. And the month dragged. We did not have enough money to buy water from those who had boreholes. It was really frustrating. I remember one day, in the morning when I was ready for school, I stood in the middle of my room and started thinking, should I take a bucket to school so that from school, when I come back from school, I can fetch water either from school or from the river to home?

My previous school had boreholes. So like it was that kind of a school that never ran out of water, like just abundant water. I also thought, if I take a bucket to school so that I fetch water on my way home, my classmates and other kids might bully me for that.

I didn’t think for a moment that they could also be experiencing-- they could also be frustrated or anxious or scared for not having water. I didn’t take the bucket. I just stormed out of my room and went to school. It was one of the most frustrating months in my school-- in my grade-school years because I couldn’t even study properly because I was constantly thinking about water. And I didn’t even know much about what other villages are going through or what other countries are going through when it comes to water and climate change.