Mission Possible Blog 2019: The Water Trek and CPA
Team B - Blog Sat 19th Oct: Water Trek and CPA
As with Team A, the other Mission Possible volunteers - who formed Team B - also had to experience the 5km water trek and the CPA (Community Participatory Assessment) to establish the needs of the local community. For the members of Team B - Arslan Tariq, Sidhra Yasin & Zain Ali - there was the realisation that fetching water is not quite as easy as it sounds.
After a long bumpy journey to Baladi village, we were welcomed beautifully by the locals with loud cheers and inviting smiles. Children and elderly alike made us feel at home instantly.
Shortly after our hellos, we grabbed our 2 x 20 litre water cans, strapped them to our bikes and set off with the villagers to the water source.
The journey to the nearest water source was a 5km return journey, on a hilly pathway with very rough terrain.
This task would be carried out by the women and most would do this journey bare-footed - very few are fortunate to use a bike as we did.
Once we arrived at the River Combe, we jumped in and filled the empty cans. The condition of the water was not anywhere near as clean as we are used to. Carrying the cans back and securing them to the bike was no easy job as they were seriously heavy.
The journey back was no different as none of us were able to manoeuvre the bike without the assistance of the locals. It was incredibly hard to imagine how the locals would carry this task out on a daily basis and even two or three times a day. The whole experience was a real eye opener and truly humbling.
After the water trek we were treated by the locals to delicious coconut water and guava straight from the trees, then went on to carrying out a CPA (Community Participatory Assessment), speaking with them to understand the history of their village and daily activities.
The way they live their lives purely of nature was fascinating and really makes you appreciate how easily we can access the simplest facilities such as schools and toilets.
