Melinda J. Irvine

For the uninitiated, after a flood your deep well needs to be cleaned.

We don’t drink the water from our well, we buy that. But the deep well feeds our [cold] shower, toilet tap (for filling buckets of water to flush those pesky # 2s) kitchen tap for dishes and teeth cleaning, and outdoor tap for laundry. We have an electric pump to push the water to the taps and a hand pump for when there’s a blackout.

Since the 6 weeks of flooding rain our deep well is smelling a lot like sewerage (not the best for teeth cleaning and lathering the Pantene) and spilling out these orange worm things onto the shower floor. So today it’s being cleaned.

It’s probably not without irony that I’m sitting here writing blogs and eBooks about Workplace Safety and Risk Management while my well-man and his 13 year-old assistant (who should probably be at school) is lowering a rented displacement pump into the well with an old piece of rope. And that same pump is being powered by 2 x overlapped extension chords (sparks flying from one connection) and a pile of dodgy, taped-up wires nested near the edge of the well.

My vigilant helper Julie has come into my office/bedroom just now to tell me they need chlorine. Julie is right now taking the 50 pesos (about $1.30) I gave her to buy some from the bamboo shack that doubles as a convenience store across the road. While she is away the smelly water is being drained into the garden via fabric piping. Slowly.

So all my Australian, UK, German, NZ, American and Canadian (et al) subscribers who enjoyed a hot clean shower this morning, please spare a thought for the millions of people in developing countries across Asia who have just experienced severe flooding. These same people also depend on their now contaminated deep wells for drinking water. And maybe they don’t have the 1,700 pesos (AUD $45) to pay a well-man and his 13 year old assistant to drain and clean it.

Why not look into some NGOs and charities that recognise that clean water is a human right not a privilege. You can find 7 of them in the article below, or better still visit the website of the UN-Water. UN-Water coordinates the efforts of UN entities and international organizations working on water and sanitation issues.

https://www.goodnet.org/articles/1000

#cleanwater