Clean water reaps a physical and spiritual harvest

The story of Maryamu Hassan

My name is Maryamu Hassan, and my family and I live in the village of Kamfani, in Northern Nigeria.  I am married to Hassan, and we have been blessed with 7 children. 

We are subsistence farmers.  We grow guinea corn as our staple crop, and also some maize.  For cash, we grow some chili peppers, and black-eyed peas.  All our farming is done by hand.  Once in a while, when we can, my husband hires a yoke of oxen to plow some of our field, but the rest of our work from planting, weeding, to harvesting is done by hand.  We carry the year's farm yield to our home on our heads.  This requires several trips, but we get it all done.

Our rains come in a seasonal pattern.  We have 4 months of rain, followed by 8 months of dry season. We get all of our planting and weeding done during the rainy season, from about July to October.  We then start to harvest from late November to December, by which time we have the farm produce in storage.

THE CYCLE OF SUBSISTENCE FARMING

We lose a lot of our hard-earned farm produce in storage.  We try our best to build barns that are insect and rodent free, but we still lose quite a bit of produce to the rodents after harvesting.

Also, because we have very little or no other income during much of the year, we are forced by need to begin selling our cash crops very soon after harvest—when prices are very low.  This vicious cycle makes it difficult for us to make good income from our cash crops.  And because all farming is done by hand, we are not able to put more area under cultivation to increase our income.

But, we are happy.  I am not complaining. We are thankful to God for His goodness.  The past 3 years have been the very best of our lives really.  Our farm yield is increasing steadily each year, we are getting a little extra income apart from farming, and our joy and gratitude overflows.  We thank God daily when we see the healthy faces our children.

All of this is a very sharp contrast from our condition of just a few years ago.

THIS WAS OUR WAY OF LIFE

Just 4 or 5 planting seasons ago, this was our way of life, more or less:  I would get up at the first rooster crow each morning, roughly 4 a.m., and would walk several miles in the dark to the village communal seep hole.  This was the only source of water for our village, Kamfani, and about two other communities nearby.  By the time I would get to the water source, there would be several other women and girls there already, those that lived nearer, or those that had gotten up even earlier than me.  We would line up and take turns fetching from this pool.

When you hear that we went through all this trouble to get water you would think that the water was good quality, but no, it was not potable at all.  It is not that we didn’t know it was poor quality, but we had no choice but to get the water like that.  That was all there was.

Several times I narrowly escaped snake bites and scorpion stings walking at dawn to fetch water.  I also remember that on several occasions, the stress on the large crowd of women and girls at the water seep hole was too much, and it escalated into open disputes.

Each morning, I went to haul water with a large pot that holds between 18-30 liters of water.  Then I’d balance it on my shoulders to walk anywhere from a mile to as much as 4 to 6 miles home!

By the time that I would return from hauling water, sometimes as late as 9 or 10 a.m., it would be time to prepare breakfast for my family, and then head out to the farm.

Of course, our productivity on the farm was poor, especially after starting our days like that.  Going to the seep hole in the evenings was not an option.  First of all, the water source was not recharged enough yet.  Secondly, I would be busy preparing dinner for my family after a hard day on the farm.

I told you that the water source was not potable, and it is true.  Our children, and my husband and I also, would get sick several times from drinking that water.  Diarrhea, skin infections and guinea worm was in that water.  Yes, guinea worm was a big problem in our village.

The worst times of the year for us was at the start of the rainy season.  Just when we needed to be the strongest to work on our farms, we would be the sickest.  The height of the dry season was also a very serious challenge for us.  In that time of the year, washing ourselves was out of the question—we would be happy to get enough water for cooking and drinking only!

SMALL CHANGE MADE CAUSES GREATER OUTCOME

Then one day it all changed.  God remembered us too.  And the Jesus Water People came.  Working with us in the community, the Jesus Water People “joined hands” with us and together we got a bore-hole for our community!  That bore-hole has made all the difference in the world for us.

The changes have been astounding.  I thank God daily when I see the healthy faces of my children.  It is almost unbelievable!  I also have more time to work productively on the farm, and I arrive at my farm rested and refreshed each morning. 

Our farm yield has increased steadily for the past three seasons, because we are healthier now and have more time on the farm.  Guinea worm has also been eradicated from our village.  Not even one case has been reported since two farming seasons ago. 

The last change is that because I now have more time, and water year-round, I make extra income for the family by making clay pots for sale during the dry season, when all farm work is done.  This has made life a lot easier for my family financially.

We also thank God for the coming of the Jesus Water People.  From their adult literacy classes, my husband can now read the Hausa Bible.  We have a Hausa New Testament at home, and he reads that to us every evening after dinner.

Because of the coming of the water people, my confidence as a leader among women has increased, and I play a leadership role in the church.  For the past 4 farming seasons, I have been the treasurer of my church in Kamfani.

LOOKING AHEAD WITH NEW HOPE

Our plans for the future are to send our younger children to school, so that they can have a better life than my husband and I have had.  This does not mean that we are not thankful to God.  We are thankful indeed, because we are blessed. 

How else can you explain the fact that people that do not know us, from across the oceans, would just come, almost out of the blue, and help us?  It is God's doing.  He has given us life—physically and spiritually, too.