{"id":3662,"date":"2011-02-15T10:20:37","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T15:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/?p=3662"},"modified":"2017-11-28T10:54:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T15:54:56","slug":"jambo-habari-ya-leo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2011\/02\/15\/jambo-habari-ya-leo\/","title":{"rendered":"Jambo! Habari ya leo?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3688\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" title=\"jack\" src=\"http:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/images\/jack.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"209\" \/>Jambo!  Habari ya leo? I&#8217;m Jack Owen, Program Director here at The Water Project. I\u2019ve been learning some KiSwahili this morning &#8211; just one of the many things on my \u2018to do\u2019 list as I start my year based in  Kenya as The Water Projects \u2018man on the ground\u2019. I joined up with Peter Chasse and the team about a year ago as a volunteer working with one of  our implementing partners here. After 6 months my role changed, I\u2019m no  longer a volunteer, and I\u2019m now responsible for all things related to  our water, sanitation and hygiene projects &#8211; our WASH program.<\/p>\n<p><br style=\"clear:both;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Over  the next 12 months I\u2019ll be here in Coast Province, as well as on the  hoof as I travel to visit our partners across Kenya, but also in a few  other interesting places. We have partners in Uganda, Sudan, Sierra  Leone and India. I\u2019m hoping to get to meet as many of them as possible,  to see the great work they are doing, and to try and document some of  it. For people who don\u2019t have the pleasure of being here, feeling the  African sun as I am today I hope this blog will answer a few questions  as well as help to create a few more. Lack of clean water and adequate  sanitation is a massive problem across the world, and the more people  who know about it the better.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-3662 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2011\/02\/15\/jambo-habari-ya-leo\/20110213-dsc_0525\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110213-DSC_0525-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2011\/02\/15\/jambo-habari-ya-leo\/20110213-dsc_0534-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110213-DSC_0534-2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/2011\/02\/15\/jambo-habari-ya-leo\/20110213-dsc_0536-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110213-DSC_0536-2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>For  this first entry, as I\u2019m new to this, I wanted to write a little about  where I live. I\u2019ve found a small house in the town of Mtwapa, about 30  minutes drive north of Mombasa. It\u2019s a fast developing town, with new  developments spreading out from the road towards the sea, and is a  popular spot for tourists seeking to get away from the big city. It\u2019s a  place full of contrasts &#8211; the white tourists with their air conditioned  apartments juxtaposed with local Swahili families living on less than $1  a day. There is stark inequality here in many ways, especially in terms  of opportunity (for work, education, healthcare, etc). Interestingly  from my point of view though, there is one area where all are equal.<\/p>\n<p>Water  in Mtwapa is sourced from under the ground, in aquifers. The tiny  pockets of air that are present in a lot of rocks (especially limestone,  which is very porous and as we are near the coast, the main formation  here) fill with water when underground. This water is called  groundwater, and is an amazing resource right under our feet. In order  to access this water, people use drilling machines to make deep  boreholes, and fit plastic casing to below the level of the groundwater.  After that, in areas such as Mtwapa they insert pumps into the casing,  and then pump the water to the surface. That is all well and good, but  in Mtwapa there is a problem.<\/p>\n<p>The  groundwater in Mtwapa is salty, and not just a little. The water coming  out of my taps tastes like the sea. And here\u2019s where I come back to the  inequality thing. Whether rich or poor, black or white, the water  coming out of your tap is the same. Everyone has the same problem to  deal with.<\/p>\n<p>So  why is this? Well, we\u2019re close to the sea, and naturally salt water  mixes a little with the fresh water from inland. The problem is, that as  more hotels and housing developments are built, the water level in the  aquifers drop. When that happens, more water flows into the aquifers  from the sea, creating even more saline water. As Mtwapa grows, we can  expect this to become an even bigger problem.<\/p>\n<p>So  one week into my year in Kenya, and I am experiencing the water crisis  first hand. What can I do about it, other than buy mineral water to  drink (which is also bad for the environment) and accept my salty  showers? Of course in the long run the only way to get a hold on this  problem is for us all to reduce the amount of water we use each day.  I\u2019ll write more about the degree to which this is already happening in  another post.<\/p>\n<p>Expect  more of these kinds of ramblings as the year goes on &#8211; feedback would  be helpful for me though! Tell me what you like, and what you don\u2019t. Ask  me questions, tell me interesting things you know about water. I\u2019d like  this to be a conversation, so if you\u2019ve got this far, it\u2019s now your  turn to say something. Feel free!<\/p>\n<p>Till next time, Kwaheri!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jack Owen reports on his first days in Mombasa, Kenya where he&#8217;ll be living and working for The Water Project over the next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-field"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3662"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57835,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions\/57835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewaterproject.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}