If you ever get the chance to give a gift to a Tanzanian Mama let me tell you that a bucket is the perfect thing to buy her. It took moving to the village for me to fully appreciate the love Mamas have for their buckets. While running a small shop at the mission base for our Tanzanian staff I used to chuckle at the intense way the Mamas sought after the empty 20L oil buckets. Whole conversations would revolve around who wanted which colour and resulted in our making a “bucket list” of upcoming receivers that was often over fifteen people long! Woe to the person who tried to jump that queue and anybody who gave a bucket out to somebody other than the next in line!
Now
that we live with our only water source as a large tank outside I have come to
love my buckets just as much as the next Mama. I can rattle off an inventory of
my buckets including colour and who might have recently borrowed them and not
given them back! You see, buckets become such an integral part of life in the
village you really can’t do without a nice stash of them. Buckets are used of
course for collecting and storing water but also they are used for bathing,
washing clothes, washing dishes, mopping the floor, storing and measuring
grain, sitting on, standing on and when they have endured all that one humble
bucket can endure in it’s lifetime they are relegated outside to be used as
flowerpots.
One
thing my buckets don’t do is take the trek over 1km to the nearest village tap.
Fortunately we are able to buy our water in bulk and store it in our tank
outside or collect rainwater off our roof but many of my neighbours make the
trip about three times per day, bucket on head, to collect their water.
Recently our water ran out and I declared that I was joining them, bucket already
on my head but fortunately or unfortunately, my husband Gody had already called
the water truck and I never got the chance.
Once I
was entertaining Maika in his stroller outside and my neighbours came past,
buckets on their heads. One of the girls was keen on swapping duties with me so
as Maika careened into maize plants and potholes while gripping on tightly to
his stroller I wobbled along trying to keep the full 10L bucket on my head. By
the time we reached their house, perhaps 200m away, my arms were aching and I
had already had my bucket bath for the day by the amount of water I spilled on
myself along the way. I’ve completely given up any dreams I had of being able
to walk along gracefully (no hands) with a 20L bucket on my head.
These days
as Maika crawls around our house getting into anything he can find, my buckets
have become something of an enemy. I take stock every morning of any buckets
with water in them that either have to be put outside or fitted with a lid lest
they be emptied onto our floor or worse. Even so, I’m still quite fond of my
buckets and if you’re coming out our way I’ll take an orange one thanks!
