Life in Africa (Carrying water)

[Darren Bent]

I have been studying about River Nile

Yeshiemebet Zewdu

Yeshiemebet lives with her husband and five children, aged between 7 and 18, in Kurar village, which is on the northern side of the Nile gorge, approximately 150 km north of Addis Ababa. They are subsistence farmers dependent on the crops they grow and their cattle and goats. The children go to school but they also have responsibilities for looking after the animals.

How big is a jerrycan?

Yeshiemebet collects water from the spring in a 30 litre jerrycan. This weighs about 1.3 kg when empty. How much does the jerrycan weigh when full of water?

Weight of water is 1 kg per litre so, if full, the total weight on her back is more than 31 kg.

She do 7 trips a day collecting water walking a km everytimes.

So that is 7km carrying water every day, and we always moan about how heavy our job.

[spilie]

bill gates is a multi zillionaire and has never lifted anything heavier than a hard drive, thats why i moan about the weight of my bags

[Silence]

Well said Carew. We should send some of our postmen over there, then let's see if they spend as much time whinging and moaning when they get back as they do now.

[Wessex]

Carew, you are right to point out that no matter how crap at times our job is there are many instances where we can say in comparison to the lot of others we are blessed.
I am pleased that we discover these things though education ,it gives us a way to reason and talk about things .When I was a mature student an interesting topic for me was about poverty and relative poverty and about how poverty was measured in different countries by their governments.
Perhaps this woman would benefit from the use of of one of our older RM bikes under the bikes for Africa initiative.

[Caniel]

I have been studying about River Nile

Yeshiemebet Zewdu

Yeshiemebet lives with her husband and five children, aged between 7 and 18, in Kurar village, which is on the northern side of the Nile gorge, approximately 150 km north of Addis Ababa. They are subsistence farmers dependent on the crops they grow and their cattle and goats. The children go to school but they also have responsibilities for looking after the animals.

How big is a jerrycan?

Yeshiemebet collects water from the spring in a 30 litre jerrycan. This weighs about 1.3 kg when empty. How much does the jerrycan weigh when full of water?

Weight of water is 1 kg per litre so, if full, the total weight on her back is more than 31 kg.

She do 7 trips a day collecting water walking a km everytimes.

So that is 7km carrying water every day, and we always moan about how heavy our job.

Tell you what you can jump on a plane and go carry it all for her if it bothers you that much.

At least she has a water source she can walk to and a farm to sustain her and her family. Other people around the world are not so fortunate. There will always be people worse off and there will always be people better off, it's called life.

I think you'll find the vast majority of posties don't moan about the weight of their pouches or how far they have to walk, they moan about the time frames we are expected to get it all done in.

[opgpat]

That's why the ladys life expectancy is probablly about 45, as is norm in undeveloped parts of Africa.

We should still moan about the weight we carry because the number of Posties with bad backs, knees and shoulders you see is unbelievable. All the old guys in our DO have a limp so the moaning is totally justified despite other people in Africa having a harder life than us.

And not suggesting this lady doesn't have it tough but 30 litres per person per day (there are 7 in the family) is excessive and probablly an exageration to make her plight seem worse than it is and to encourage donations and action. There is no way they need 30litres each to cook and drink and the occasional clothes wash which I bet is done locally in a river anyway. She probablly goes twice a day at most.

vid here:
http://www.sciencelive.org/component/op ... /Itemid,97" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[madmax99]

I have been studying about River Nile

Yeshiemebet Zewdu

Yeshiemebet lives with her husband and five children, aged between 7 and 18, in Kurar village, which is on the northern side of the Nile gorge, approximately 150 km north of Addis Ababa. They are subsistence farmers dependent on the crops they grow and their cattle and goats. The children go to school but they also have responsibilities for looking after the animals.

How big is a jerrycan?

Yeshiemebet collects water from the spring in a 30 litre jerrycan. This weighs about 1.3 kg when empty. How much does the jerrycan weigh when full of water?

Weight of water is 1 kg per litre so, if full, the total weight on her back is more than 31 kg.

She do 7 trips a day collecting water walking a km everytimes.


So that is 7km carrying water every day, and we always moan about how heavy our job.

And I bet you main Paper is "The Guardian" !



If her plight concerns you so much go and help her.