ADVELA’S STORY
Advela’s husband died last year, leaving behind five children and a baby on the way She was a widow and new mother all at once, needing more than she ever had and less able to provide than ever before
Her life was a dystopian math problem: if Advela has 24 hours in a day, six children to feed, clothe, and educate, 0 means of generating income, and 80 liters of water requiring at least 8 hours to fetch, costing money she doesn’t have… how does Advela survive?
She lives in Nsengoni, where we received funding to construct 80 residential rainwater harvesting systems for families most in need. The selection process wasn’t easy Here, everyone suffers from undrinkable groundwater The marginally more potable alternative is far away and often unavailable. The women’s daily quest is all-consuming. The fatigue in their eyes is profound.
We were with Advela the day construction began. She watched Anna and her crew of women unload cement and sand, making light work of heavy materials Their strength makes the labor seem effortless. To see their ease, their lightness of being, you wouldn’t know that each has lived the same desperate scarcity as the women of Nsengoni
Anna and her team are harbingers of change. They are manifestations of what is possible when women are freed from enslavement to water Each tank they build bridges the gap between the giver and the receiver It is a hand extended – an invitation to step into power.
Advela’s tank took them just six days to complete and was ready in time for the long rainy season’s beginning The transformation was immediate: from nothing, she suddenly had more than she could use: laundry, cooking, drinking, and washing. Each day, the rain replenished whatever she depleted.
Just one inch falling on 500 sq ft of roof harvests 300 gallons, which would have taken her 60 trips and ten days and nights of nonstop walking to collect.
But she has reclaimed so much more than time her strength, energy, health, and vitality There is a spark in her eyes that wasn’t there before She holds herself differently. She has her own plot of farmland now. She is growing corn and beans to feed her family The greenhouse she received with her tank is full Her bounty of harvests should yield enough to sell, too
What was once an intractable equation that multiplied scarcity and desperation has become a life of sweet sufficiency, from which boundless possibility has only just begun to ripple out.
The solution was simple: just add water.
