The Travel Episodes

Waiting for me at the exit of the airport are two men and a rather pensive-looking woman. They’re holding a white sign that says the name of my volun­tee­ring orga­ni­sa­tion Karmalaya on it in purple. I’m happy to have the trans­port service, as I’m tired to death and can barely think.

One of the two men is pres­um­a­bly Father Joseph, the priest from the parish commu­nity in which I am soon to live. I just don’t know which of them it is yet. But instead of asking, I let them guide me to my car without saying a word, and I sit down in the passen­ger seat. My escorts don’t say anything, either. Strange.

We drive through the night full steam ahead.

Our jour­ney takes one and a half hours, during which time I disco­ver that Father Joseph is the one in the seat next to me, hurt­ling through the Afri­can night at formi­da­ble speed with an impa­ti­ent combi­na­tion of flashing signals and horn honking. Thank God the man’s a priest. He must have called on a whole army of guar­dian angels for this nocturnal jour­ney. Father Joseph is in his late thir­ties, he’s wearing a pink polo shirt and has a slight belly. His full name is Father Joseph-Mary Kavuma. There’s a figu­rine of the Virgin Mary in front of me on the dash­board, and the Ugan­dan flag is flap­ping about rest­lessly by the windscreen in the car inte­rior.

After an hour of fren­zied driving through the Ugan­dan darkness, we arrive at a backyard in Kampala, the capi­tal city of Uganda. Roan­nie, my second escort, jumps out of the back seat and opens a rather sombre-looking creaky metal gate. We drive in. Just three hours now before the alarm is due to go off and it’ll time for Mass. I’m exci­ted and looking forward to the time ahead of me, so I can’t get to sleep… 

I’m only stay­ing in the capi­tal for a couple of days, then I’ll be hitting the dusty roads and heading north.

* * *

It takes us two hours to travel just 40 kilo­metres. En route to the village of Nandere, we pass by anot­her village called Bwaise, which occu­pies an unfor­tu­n­ate loca­tion in a small valley. Each year when the rainy season begins and the water drains down from the plateau, heavy floods and muds­li­des ensue. That’s why the Ugan­dans say:

“Water is life, but not for people in Bwaise.”

Father Joseph shows me how high the water rises. It’s like a curse: these people spend months waiting for the rain, and when it finally comes, it arri­ves in such great quan­ti­ties that the people can’t control it and the ground can barely hold it.

About 500 people live in the village of Nandere. There are two primary schools, an eccle­si­asti­cal school, a nurses’ home, a tiny hospi­tal and a parish hall, which is where my room is loca­ted. Cons­i­de­ring the condi­ti­ons here, I live quite comfor­ta­bly: I have my own room with a bed, a desk and a small cabi­net. Very few people enjoy this much comfort in Uganda. The day after I arrive, I’m taken on a guided tour of the village by Colline. The houses, which belong to one of the primary schools, are old and run-down. For each of the small rooms there are eight child­ren. They sleep on the floor without a blan­ket. Some of them even spend the night on empty bed frames – without a mattress. And still, they’re often better off here than they are at home. They get three meals a day and the educa­tion they so despe­r­a­tely need here.

My room is stone’s throw or two from the church. Each morning just before five o’clock, I’m awoken by the sound of the church bells ringing. Then off rush the primary school kids in their smart clothes, heading for church with their hymn books under their arms. The second service of the day starts at seven; it’s atten­ded mostly by the older school child­ren and the adults in the village.

I’m impres­sed by the strong faith these people have – almost ninety-five per cent of the Ugan­dan popu­la­tion are devout Chris­ti­ans.

A lot is diffe­rent here compa­red to my sojourn in Kampala. I get up early and wash myself in a tiny shower room with some water from a bucket, and then I head to a common room in the parish for break­fast. I often eat katogo, plan­tain with sauce, or a slice of toast. I usually see Father Joseph Bali­kud­dembe at break­fast. I know, it’s enough to drive a person mad: there are three priests in this parish called Joseph. Every so often I indulge myself in a spot of mischief and address all the villa­gers as Joseph or Jose­phine. They laugh and call me Joseph, too.
 
 

Father Joseph
 
 
On my first day here, we meet up with the local forest ranger. Father Joseph star­ted working with the NFA (Natio­nal Forestry Autho­rity) two years ago, and he goes to trai­ned fores­ters when he needs profes­sio­nal help and advice. William is a lanky fellow in his mid-fifties, and his head is cove­red in ripp­les of curly grey hair. He’s quiet and pati­ent. We’ve arran­ged to meet him at seven in the morning. He’s almost punc­tual, arri­ving just seven hours late. It doesn’t even seem to occur to him to apolo­gise come the after­noon. “That’s Afri­can time,” is the vague attempt at an explana­tion I hear. 

William shows me the pine forest at the other end of the village. It’s seven years old. Plan­ting it was one of Father Joseph’s first offi­cial duties after it quickly dawned on him that they ought to be plan­ting more trees than they were felling. The first time the forest was thin­ned was two years back. Now it’s time to trim the trees. If the pine trees are to grow thic­ker trunks, it’s important to chop off any bran­ches that are a drain on their resour­ces. Easy, I think to myself, and start looking around for a saw. Nothing. So, none of the people here have thought to bring work tools? Well, no, because of course today we’re only here in the forest to inves­ti­gate.

I’m getting rest­less. I don’t have time for this. 

Even during my first few days in the capi­tal city I found myself getting bored. I wanted to finally make a start and do some­thing, make some­thing happen. And now? Nothing’s happe­ning, again.

But the next day it’s time for action. I ask Emma how high up we need to cut the bran­ches.

“Eight.”
Eight? Did I hear that right? Eight, as in eight metres? How are we going to manage that? Instead of answe­ring me, Emma simply whist­les with her fingers to two workers in the distance, who produce some bricks from behind the bushes. Joined by the two workers and armed with two mache­tes, we head into the forest and clob­ber down a couple of young trees. The young Ugan­dans swiftly assem­ble the trunks to make a three-lagged ladder. It makes me feel uneasy when I think about stan­ding on this hand­made ladder, packing almost a hund­red kilos of body weight. But it turns out to be very stable.

But two metres of Steven plus three metres of ladder still doesn’t equal eight metres.

So, we look for anot­her tree trunk, which Emma severs with a power­ful strike of the machete. We place our saw on this trunk – and the tele­sco­pic rod is complete.

It takes almost ten minu­tes to prune a single tree up at this height. That’s 6 trees an hour, 48 per day. But with around 500 trees in this section of wood­land, there’s no time to lose.

My life over the follo­wing days revol­ves around pruning the trees. In the first few days, I only manage 15 to 20 trees before my arms start to ache and I feel like collap­sing in a heap on the forest floor. But my physi­cal fitness does get better. I manage to trim more and more trees in less and less time, and my work is done after two weeks of hard graft. I’ve actually mana­ged to prune the whole forest!

A couple of days later, I find myself in some nearby bush coun­try along with four other men from the region. The land­s­cape is full of wildly over­grown bushes measu­ring up to two metres in height. I’m holding a machete in my right hand and wearing Father Joseph’s straw hat on my head as I sweat and pant in the scor­ching morning sun. We cut down ever­y­thing that gets in our way with power­ful swipes of the machete. Grass, shrubs, young trees – we clear them all from the ground. The men I’m working with aren’t from Nandere. They’re travel­ling through the region looking for work.

They earn no more than 10,000 Ugan­dan Shil­lings for a day’s work. That’s €2.50.

They get their break­fast in the village, where the parish cook prepa­res black tea and porridge. For the rest of the day, they feed them­sel­ves. On five out of six working days, they eat jack­fruits they’ve picked from the trees around us.

But today there’s a deli­cacy on the menu for lunch: white ants! The ants flew away during the night, and what I saw this morning when I got up was nothing short of a true natu­ral specta­cle. Milli­ons of white ants were flying through the sky, making the surroun­ding area look like it was cloa­ked in fog. Swarms of ants that had probably been flying for hours were lying limply on the ground. School child­ren and villa­gers were collec­ting them in black plastic bags. One of the men shows me his bag. Wow, he must have collec­ted about half a kilo’s worth. He’s care­fully sealed the bag and laid it out in the sun. The black­ness of the plastic bags is now baking the ants in the sun’s heat. Of course, he asks me if I want to try one of his white ants. I kill the crea­ture with my first bite; it doesn’t taste of anything. What I’d been most afraid of was the thought of the ant craw­ling around on my tongue.

The next day I meet William. He’s come to help us plant a euca­lyp­tus forest. We discuss the plan of action. First things first, we’ll have to wait until the rainy season begins before anything else can happen. We’re at the end of March now, and the rain is eagerly awai­ted here in Uganda. Then what? Then we can start plan­ting the trees. That’s it. End of meeting. We need the rain first, then we can plant trees. Makes sense to me.

I spend the next couple of days in the parish. I help out in the garden and the kitchen, I mop my room, and I read a lot. I enjoy the isola­tion that comes with living in a 500-soul village in Uganda. There’s nothing to distract me here. For the first time in years, I feel evened out again. And I have the chance to reac­quaint myself with what bore­dom feels like.

Much to my surprise, I find some music tracks on my phone. That’s quite odd, because usually I only listen to music on the radio. One of the songs that has made its way onto my phone for some reason or other is Toto’s Africa. I listen to the song again and again, and spend several conse­cu­tive after­noons lying lethar­gi­cally in my room, staring at the ceiling.

And suddenly, just as the refrain is about to set in again with the words “… I bless the rains down in Africa…”, it starts raining. The child­ren run out from the nearby school and I open my door to the front yard of the parish hall. The tempe­ra­tures drop five degrees in one fell swoop. The air is filled with the scent of summer rain, a smell I’ve adored ever since I was a kid.

Finally, yes finally, the rainy season has begun and we can plant the forest. Exci­ted, and in the hope that we’ll be able to get to work in a matter of moments, I run through the parish on the hunt for Father Joseph. He’s sitting with the field workers. I imagine they must be discus­sing the work sche­dule. Exci­tedly and hastily, I ask what the next steps are for us.

“Unfor­tu­n­a­tely, the rains have star­ted now, Steven. We can’t do anything else at the moment.”
“What do you mean, unfor­tu­n­a­tely? But we’ve waited half a week! Why we can’t do anything?”
“We still have to burn the old plant debris before we can start to plant the trees.”

I’m speech­less. We’ve been waiting for the rain for half a week. And it’s finally here, it suddenly occurs to the gentle­men that we’ve yet to burn the old plant debris. I can’t believe this place. Uganda. I retreat to my room and start listen­ing to the song where it stop­ped.

… I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had …

Fortu­n­a­tely, the rain passes quickly, and the next day the heat of the sun is strong enough to banish the last drops of mois­ture. The control­led slash and burn clearance is carried out in just one day. Yet I still won’t plant even a single tree. That’s only going to happen two months down the line, as our forest ranger has neglec­ted to order the 10,000 seed­lings we need to plant the forest.

In the days that follow, I find myself thin­king a lot about volun­tee­ring as a concept. Will the work I do make any diffe­rence in the long term? Or has my volun­tee­ring stint been nothing more than just a perso­nal adven­ture for me?

I’m off to save the world.
But I only have four weeks. 

I’ve come to Nandere to help people and dedi­cate my time to them. I enjoy working outside in nature. It’s an adven­ture for me and I’m probably learning more about nature and Ugan­dan culture than I’m actually able to teach people myself. The only thing that might be seen as enri­ching for the people here is the inter­cul­tu­ral exchange. But I don’t really get the impres­sion I can make a valu­able diffe­rence. Worse than that, I get the feeling that I’m taking someone’s job away from them. I want to do some­thing that goes above any beyond my volun­tee­ring stint, and achieve some­thing that helps these people long term.

I get the feeling that the village of Nandere is more than capa­ble of being self-sufficient. The fields surroun­ding the village supply plenty of fruit and veg, plus the wood indus­try makes a small contri­bu­tion to the empty coffers of the village and the church. But sadly, water is in scarce supply when the dry season sets in. 

The ground­wa­ter just cannot flow into the pit of the well as quickly as it gets pumped out.

The rain­wa­ter from the roof of the church and the surroun­ding houses is fed into an under­ground water tank with the capa­city for 25,000 litres. But if there’s no rain, there’s no water for the parish. Every morning before school, and every day after school, Colline goes back and forth to the hand pump and carries hund­reds of litres of water to the parish. There is a pipe system in the houses. But that’s obviously no use if there’s no water in the pipes.
 
 

Colline
 
 

When Colline sets out to fetch water and I’m close by, I go to help him. Only at this point do I realise just how hard this back-breaking work really is.

One day, I come back from foot­ball trai­ning cove­red in sweat and dust. I take the last bucket of water out of the barrel and wash myself in the shower. Wimp that I am, I’ve finally just about got used to showering with cold water. When I finish, I don’t just want to top the water level; I want to get more than I’ve used. I grab two twenty-litre canis­ters, and I head for the well. People are reluc­tant to leave me here alone, and as Colline is about to make his way to the well anyway, he accom­pa­nies me carry­ing two more canis­ters of the same size.

We have to wait a while when we get to the well. When our turn comes around, I put one of the canis­ters under the outlet and start pumping. I pull the lever up ten times, twenty times, thirty times. No water. It’s never been as bad as this. A little boy tells me I must be pati­ent. A dozen or so more pumps, and the first bit of water makes its way up from the ground. It’s a wonder­ful moment, but there just isn’t enough. Only a hand­ful of water splat­ters out into the canis­ter with each pump.

It takes us twenty-five minu­tes to fill one of the four canis­ters. For just twenty litres!

I’m exhausted and defla­ted. I’ve always been very helpful with pumping the water over the past few days, and now some of the child­ren and adole­scents come rushing to my aid. After more than an hour, I head back to do my laundry carry­ing two full canis­ters.

Upon my return, I disco­ver that the child­ren have alre­ady filled the other two canis­ters and brought them back to the parish. I’m lost for words. I know exactly how stre­nuous it is both to pump forty litres of water and to carry it all the way back. I’m touched, and I find myself wonde­ring whether the same thing would have happened to me in Germany.

When I leave the village of Nandere after more than three weeks of intense coha­bi­ta­tion, I’m seriously deter­mi­ned to set things in motion. I’ll be coming back, no doubt about that. 

* * *

Uganda, 21 Febru­ary 2016: things are much the same as the first time I was here. The same smell of hay perva­des my nose when I stand outside Entebbe airport. There’s a plea­sant heat. And I’m feeling quite exci­ted once again.

My ruck­sack weighs about ten kilos. I strap it onto my back and take anot­her piece of luggage from the conveyor belt; it’s jam-packed with clot­hing dona­ti­ons. I don’t know what to expect, and I certainly don’t know if we’re going to reach our goal. But now I’m here, and there’s no turning back. “Let’s do this!” I say to myself as I dive head­first into the final chap­ter of this adven­ture, which is going to push me to my limits once more.

Much to my surprise, I’m gree­ted by three old acquain­tan­ces who have come to pick me up from the airport. Father Joseph, Father Joseph Bali­kud­dembe and Emma are there waiting for me at the exit. I hug them all wholehe­ar­tedly. The reunion moves me to tears. All the memo­ries from my last visit suddenly come floo­ding back. It’s all so fresh in my mind, it’s as if I only left yester­day.

We pick up from where we left off. Our wild jour­ney through the Ugan­dan night gives us chance to catch up in detail, with Father Joseph driving just as madly all the while – not even a tiny bit slower than he did the first time. The presi­den­tial elec­tion took place a couple of days ago. Yoweri Muse­veni was re-elected yet again – he’s been the Presi­dent of Uganda since 1986. The suppres­sion of his poli­ti­cal oppon­ents is the subject of inter­na­tio­nal criti­cism; indeed, there’s a great deal of criti­cism in the coun­try itself. Many people are set to hit the stre­ets in the coming days to demons­trate against elec­to­ral fraud. Muse­vini is cons­i­de­red a corrupt indi­vi­dual. I find myself wonde­ring how a coun­try that’s full of corrup­tion is suppo­sed to evolve.

We make it to the parish yard at around seven in the morning. By this point, I’ve been awake for 24 hours. I’m tired, the moun­ting tempe­ra­tures are sapping my energy, and I just want to go to bed. But half the parish is awai­ting my arri­val. I see so many fami­liar faces. Agnes and Colline are waiting to welcome me. There are hugs, drawings are handed to me as gifts, and our project recei­ves God’s bles­sing. Never before have I been given such a warm welcome. After that, I can finally go to bed, albeit just for two hours.

 
 

 
 
A lot has happened in the space of the past year. The euca­lyp­tus forest I helped to prepare for plan­ting is alre­ady two metres high in places. It’s incredi­ble how fast the trees have grown. I come across one of the sisters during an exten­ded tour of the village. I imme­dia­tely reco­gnise her. I call out to her. “Oli otya, nyabo?” A huge smile beams from her face as she replies “Gendi”. I respond with a slight moan, like I’ve so often heard them do in Uganda, and retort with “Ni bulunge”: I’m well. I feel good.

It’s like I’ve finally come home after a long trip.

But along with all this human happi­ness, I also perceive some nega­tive chan­ges. The primary school just by the well – the one I thought was in such an appal­ling condi­tion a year ago – has now been closed down. The scar­city of the water supply was instru­men­tal in this deci­sion, but dispu­tes between the teachers were anot­her factor. The old school buil­ding is deser­ted, and there are plans to refur­bish it in the coming months. It’s a lot quie­ter in the village now. I see far fewer child­ren. Some­ti­mes, in the after­noons, I feel like I’m comple­tely alone.
 
 

 
 

Obviously, I’m inte­rested in how matters stand with the well now follo­wing this “popu­la­tion drain”. My first few pushes of the pump surprise me: ample water flows from the rusty metal pipe of the hand pump, which is much easier to use compa­red to last year. Was the water going to be enough for the village now? Colline, anot­her boy and I carry a couple of water canis­ters to the well. I want to find out how much water there is inside. It takes us several hours to pump more than 200 litres of water. Then it beco­mes clear that the well is almost empty. By this point, only a meagre dribble of water splat­ters into our yellow canis­ter. Our deci­sion to build a well is still correct. Besi­des, the new well must be built if the primary school is to reopen.

At midday on the same day, I’m waiting to meet Moses. He’s the project mana­ger from Busoga Trust, the company that’s going to be respon­si­ble for the construc­tion of the well. He’s brought an engi­neer with him. Bare­foo­ted, I slip into my wellies and we head for the foot of the hill.
We pass by the banana plan­ta­ti­ons as we go down­hill, walking half a kilo­metre until we reach the desi­gna­ted spot for the bore­hole. The engi­neer nods without saying a word. This is where we want to dig the trench for the well. Our plan is clear. But then we start talking about the contract and the costs.

Moses offers to save me five per cent on the over­all cost. In return, he wants to execute the project inde­pendently. Without Busoga Trust, without thirty years of expe­ri­ence in well construc­tion, without a contract, and without protec­tion. All I have to do is trans­fer all the money we worked so hard to raise to his private bank account. It doesn’t take me long to decide against this plan. Obviously, I want to see the project through as per our budget and with Busoga Trust on board. Of course, Moses isn’t happy with this deci­sion. Obviously not, because this way he can’t pocket the money hims­elf. He threa­tens to delay the project.

On this after­noon of 22 Febru­ary, I return to my room at the parish feeling disap­poin­ted. Over­ti­red and unsett­led, I lay down on my bed and reflect on what’s happened. Now’s the time to stay strong. This kind of situa­tion is exactly why we deci­ded to super­vise the project on-site. That’s the only way we can try to prevent corrup­tion and stay on sche­dule.

The next day, I come to an important deci­sion irre­spec­tive of any other arran­ge­ments with Moses: with help from us, the people of Nandere are going to dig their own trench from the well to the centre of the village. This way, we can cut costs and get the village actively invol­ved in the project. We’ll also save time because we can start whene­ver we want to.

We need to dig a trench that’s 470 metres long, 60 centi­metres deep and 30 centi­metres wide. We start work the next morning, borro­wing a few work tools from nearby. It soon beco­mes appa­rent to me why we need a pick­axe. The ground is rock hard, and only the top layer is soil. Under­ne­ath this is a layer of stone that can only be loosened with the pick­axe. Once the top layer is off, we scoop the loose stones out of the ditch with a shovel. I’ve unde­re­sti­ma­ted how much effort this is going to require and how much we’re capa­ble of achie­ving. That beco­mes clear to me after the first half hour. I stand under the shade of a mango tree with my T-shirt soaking wet and my hands full of dust, panting like an old decrepit donkey. 

Emma and Raphael help out every day, and they become my best friends in Nandere. They have both achie­ved some­thing in this village. They culti­vate their own fields, make agri­cul­tu­ral produce and sell it at the regio­nal markets. Both of them can afford a small house, and they have some­thing to eat every day. They’re doing well. And despite alre­ady having plenty to do in their own fields, they’re always doing their bit as part of the digging team.
 
 

Emma
 
 
One after­noon, Raphael and I are stan­ding in a row inside the trench. The sun is beating down on us, and Raphael is hard at work loose­ning the stony ground with the pick­axe while I’m shovel­ling the stones out of the trench. We quiz each other on voca­bu­lary as we work.

“What’s your name?” – “Erri­nya lyo gweani?”
“I’d like a water, please.” – “Njagala mazzi.”
“How much does it cost?” – “Sente mekka?”

I enjoy learning the Ugan­dan language. At some point, Raphael turns around and says that it’s finally time I got a Ugan­dan name; I deserve it for all my inte­rest in Ugan­dan culture and the help I’ve given in the village. 

“From now on, you’re going to be called Kasali,” he says, and with that, he conclu­des his little unex­pec­ted rant. I’m baff­led.

Kasali? Sounds good. OK, that’ll be my name now.

My mood impro­ves noti­ce­ably in the days that follow. For the time being, I stop using my German name. Most people call me Mr Kasali now, even Father Joseph. The trench gets longer day by day. We some­ti­mes manage to dig over 40 metres in one day, but some­ti­mes it’s less than 20. I’m on Afri­can time now; I’m calmer and I have fun doing the work.

Not even the eter­nal rounds of meetings with Busoga Trust bother me now. I’m confi­dent, and I reckon we’re going to finish the well on time. Mean­while, back home in Germany, Hannes and Stef­fen have formu­la­ted an agree­ment outlining all the important construc­tion proces­ses, the costs and a sche­dule for us. We’ll be able to fina­lise the agree­ment a week after I land. We set the dead­line for the comple­tion of the well on 29 March. If we don’t get it done by then, there’s no money for Busoga Trust. That’s a good enough source of pres­sure.

 
 

 
 
We manage to dig about half the length of the trench by the time Hannes and Stef­fen make it to Nandere. I’m so happy to meet these two Berli­ners when they get to the airport in Uganda. Finally, we no longer need to talk and make plans in never-ending Whats­App chats. We can have real conver­sa­ti­ons, weigh up the pros and cons, and make deci­si­ons toge­ther. We take an extra-long walk around the village when they arrive. I feel like someone who’s proudly presen­ting their first flat to friends. A couple of villa­gers greet us when they see us. Child­ren play­ing in the distance yell out “Mzugu” – Kiswa­hili for “white men”.

With Hannes and Steffen’s help, we manage to come up with a sustai­na­bi­lity stra­tegy. It’s not going to do anyone any good if there’s some­thing wrong with the well and it can’t be fixed. Someone is going to have to look after the well and take respon­si­bi­lity for it. A profes­sor from the Univer­sity of Hohen­heim has given us a tip: esta­blish a water commit­tee, and charge a fee to use the well. I’m initi­ally oppo­sed to the idea of char­ging a fee. But gradually we realise that doing so is comple­tely necessary. The villa­gers should only be char­ged a few cents, but the schools and hospi­tal will have to pay a more size­able monthly fee.

I leave Uganda after just two weeks. It breaks my heart that I have to leave now. I’ve put so much sweat and tears into the well, and I would have loved to see it right through to its comple­tion. I don’t catch a wink of sleep during the flight. I jot down some of my thoughts and memo­ries in my note­book, and I reflect on lethargy, hard work, burnout and poverty. The lack of help I got digging the trench left me feeling sorely disap­poin­ted.

But perhaps it’s funda­ment­ally better for us to take ever­y­thing that bit easier?

Hannes and Stef­fen are taking over the project in Nandere now. They’re struggling with the same problems, but there’s two of them, so they can moti­vate each toge­ther. I’m in contact with both of them almost every day. They report to me with pictures of the progress they’re making over there. Everything’s back to normal here in Germany. My life hurt­les by at high speed, so I never really get a chance to process my expe­ri­en­ces in Nandere.

Then before I know it, Maundy Thurs­day is here and the time has come for the elec­tri­cal pump to be instal­led in the pit of the well. Late in the evening, when my phone buzzes and I start watching the video of Hannes and Stef­fen, I find myself on the verge of tears. Water is flowing. There’s running drin­king water in Nandere!