Donkeys
Mary is one of the earliest adopters of the Sunflower pump, she bought one last year in August, so I was looking forward to seeing the fruits of her purchase.
Her boma (living compound) is laid out like a prison camp, everything in neat rectangular blocks surrounded by barbed wire. Outside of the garden blocks, everywhere is immaculate compacted dirt, devoid of vegetation. She is clearly a very industrious and organized farmer. There is even a small shop at the entrance to the boma, accessible by a hefty gate between several strands of barbed wire.
As is often the case when I first arrive at a new site, I enquire as to the location of her water supply. Expecting to be directed towards a well, I was surprised when she pointed towards the lake, which is several kilometres away. (The Sunflower is a suction pump which can lift from 6m below ground and push to fields several metres above and several hose lengths distance from the pump, but not kilometres).
- So how do you use the pump, I asked.
- The donkeys fetch water from the lake and then I use the pump to distribute around the compound.
Resisting the urge to be too much of an engineer by asking why, on her sloping boma, she doesn’t simply use gravity for the distribution, we enter into a conversation about the mathematics of donkey water fetching.
- How much water can your donkeys fetch a day?
- On a good day they can fill that 1000ltr storage tank, indicating a big black tank, by fetching these pointing to three small blue containers, three times. But if I don’t give them enough food, they will only fetch once or twice.
This put a funny image in my mind of a donkey walking up a hill and stopping dead in his tracks as his stomach becomes empty. The donkey boy cuts down a small sheaf of leaves and feeds it to the poor ass, which gives it enough energy to advance a few hundred metres before it stops again.
Considered in this way, donkeys are reduced to no more than living engines. Fuel in, work out. That is their life, and they appear completely resigned to it. In fact in a way they are treated even worse than an actual mechanical engine. A generator or motor pump might be cleaned, oiled, lovingly put back in their box and brought inside the house. An engine, unlike a donkey, will not respond to a good beating.
When their workday is finally over, donkeys will stand completely motionless, often in the middle of a busy road, with a thoroughly depressed expression on their already long faces. The exception to this dejection and slave-like existence is when a jack donkey has the horn. During this time all discipline is lost. He will then pursue his jenny relentlessly and ardently unperturbed by kicks to his snout or passing traffic.
In this respect diesel pumps and donkeys are very different.
