Working the nfaregi

Every week, or every other week, or once a month (not sure of the schedule yet) 50-70 of Sangui's (the village) men get their pangas (machetes) and mattocks and spend half a day tidying up a section of the nfaregi.

The nfaregi is the traditional irrigation system, which is a network of trenches varying from 50cm to two metres wide into which the water from Mt Meru flows. To irrigate your farm you dig a connecting trench from the main line into your own network of trenches in your farm. There must be some etiquette surrounding its use because it would be easy for someone upstream to hog all the water. The nfaregi is also used as a rubbish bin (rubbish floats away - out of sight out of mind) and a toilet. Most of the illnesses around are a result of people drinking nfaregi water, which is laced with typhoid and cholera causing bacteria. The town water, which is on for about 30 minutes each morning is also very dodgy, and it is too expensive for people to boil their water. This is particularly a problem now that coal burning for cooking has just been outlawed. The old Masai women who carry bags of coal on their donkeys to sell, have had their coal confiscated by the government. And no policies for alternative fuel sources appear to exist.

So, this morning at 7:30am, Corky (Robert Cork - environmental engineer) and myself headed off to the meeting point for this round of nfaregi work. I was in the front group with the panga and Corky was in the back group with the mattock. For about 4 hours I and 40 other men waded upstream hacking the grass, plants and branches away from the sides of the nfaregi. The murky grey-brown water littered with rubbish and excrement would splash up into my eyes, mouth and gradually increasing number of cuts in my arms and legs. Sounds a bit putrid and no doubt put my vaccinations to the test, but the scenery we passed on our (roughly 2km) wade up the nfaregi was like something out of an Indiana Jones or Tarzan movie. The dense banana trees (and thousand other types of plant) overhanging the nfaregi, the steep slopes of the hill we traversed overlooking the shambas (farms) in our village and surrounding areas. When we reached our end point we stood in a line in the water and gathered the rocks off the bottom and piled them on the edges (we only did this for about 10 minutes before everyone got bored of it). We then wandered (there is only wandering here - no purposeful striding) back down to the village and sat under a huge Acacia for the nfaregi meeting. The meeting discusses who didn't show up and what to do with the fine (for not showing up) money - and they have decided to build 4 mini-weirs around the area to better manage the water flows.

As Corky pointed out, we are probably one of the first mzungu to ever have helped work on the nfaregi and the appreciation it earns us goes towards the security of our accommodation. The more people we can have on 'our side' then it is less likely that any organised raid of our house and land will happen (which is a distinct possibility given the number of laptops in this house and general wealth that surrounds a group of mzungu).

This afternoon and tomorrow (Sunday) are the rest days. Got some pics of a couple of kiddies in the gallery now too.....