Kachaje: The head is for thinking

Some years ago someone shared with me the thought that we need to use the head for thinking and not carrying heavy stuff. To illustrate his point he continued sharing that both the white man and the black man knew long time ago that water is essential for life and they both used “heads”.

The white man used his head to think of ways to bring water into his house. He designed and constructed a water pump, a dam, and pipes that brought water directly into his house. With some continuous thinking, he has sustained this water delivery method and his family enjoys fresh clean water at the turn of a tap.

The black man on the other hand decided to use the heads of his wife and daughters to draw the water from the river or well through water buckets. Sadly, he became satisfied with this method which was “effortless” on his part.

The white man stopped drawing water from the river hundreds of years ago and the black man continues to use the heads of his wife and daughter, sometimes, from miles away and he seems to see no problem with his method.

It is unacceptable that we seem to have accepted that water should be sourced like this. I believe as a nation we need to begin to use our heads for thinking so that we can stop abusing the heads of our women as transportation tools for bringing water into our homes.

We need to set a goal as a nation that there will come a time when tap water will be accessible to all.

I believe this is not an impossible dream to be achieved within the next twenty to thirty years. It should not be difficult to achieve this in a country where a third of the land is covered by fresh waters, stretching the entire length of the nation.

I really believe that this is an achievable dream since what we seek to achieve was already attained in the West more than 200 years ago. All it will take is for us to start using our heads for thinking and not abuse them for carrying heavy loads.