The Bugs Bunny Cap

To be fair, Henry thought he was pretty cool when he wore his Bugs Bunny cap. He bought it at Singapore Airport on his way to Tanzania and it was love at first sight! It was green, his favourite colour and embroided on the front was an image of Bugs Bunny. And although he didn’t give a toss for labels, the tick of Nike was obvious on the back.

He wore the cap only when he was going out, never at work - he worked in a Budweiser cap he found at the Mtumba - the second hand market.

‘Granddad,’ Elsa said, ‘I heard you talking to Daddy about your cap that was stolen, can you tell us about it?’

Henry smiled at the girls and thought about the events before replying.

‘It was my best cap that I paid twenty five US dollars for.’ He began.

‘We had to go to Nairobi because I broke a tooth on a stone that was in some peanuts I chomped on.’

‘Ouch!’ Anna is always sympathetic. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘Yes it did.’ Granddad laughed. ‘I went to an Indian dentist woman who had trained here in the UK – she did a very good job and was gentle.

Afterwards we were shopping for some shoes because we had been invited to an important wedding. There were a lot of people busily going about their business – Nairobi is a busy, bustling city.

As we were crossing the road a young fellow whipped off my cap and ran off down the road with it!’

‘Were you scared?’ Anna was wild-eyed at the cheek.

‘No really – in the heat of the moment I suppose. It was not very safe to leave Granny on her own, but I didn’t give her a thought – I was focused on getting my best cap back.

Straight away I ran after the youth calling out ‘Mwizi!’  That means ‘thief’.’

‘Did anyone help you?’ Asked practical Elsa.

‘Yes, there was a line of cars, stopped at lights. The fellow ran down the line, where someone quickly opened a car door and he ran slap, bang into it – made him stumble, slowed him down.’

‘Good!’ Said Anna, satisfied.

‘Yeah, it slowed him down but he ran across the road towards a group of men who responded to my calls of ‘Thief’ and they caught hold of him!

Captured, the lad handed me my cap.’

‘Good!’ Anna said again.

‘The men began to punch him and I clenched my fists and thought I might biff him one too – but I thought better of it and thanked the men suggesting they let him go.

I was puffed with all my running, but suddenly the big crowd that had stopped to watch, started clapping! I didn’t realize that I had made such a spectacle! So I had to pretend I wasn’t puffing at all and smiled back at them.’

‘What about Granny?’ Elsa asked.

Henry laughed. ‘A young boy who had been selling peanuts helped her to finish crossing the road and was standing beside her waiting – guarding her I think.’

‘That was good of him.’ Elsa thought.

‘Yes it was, so I gave him more money than he would make in a day’s selling his peanuts– just to say thanks.’

‘You were lucky to get it your cap back then.’ Commented Anna.

‘That’s not the end of the story though.’ Continued Granddad.

‘What happened next?’ asked Elsa.

‘Back in Arusha about a week later, I had been at the Agency office and was walking down a narrow track towards the main road when a woman stopped me and asked if I knew how she could get sponsorship to become a nurse. People often ask for help with different things, so I spoke to her for about five minutes and just as we had finished, a man on a bike passed close and whipped my cap off!’

‘Really? Do you think the woman was helping the man?’ asked Elsa suspiciously.

‘I thought that too, but I really don’t know, but I will never forget the guys face as he rode off with a smart smirk on his face because he knew I couldn’t catch him!’

‘So you finally lost your cap?’ sympathised Anna.

‘Yes, I hopped in my truck and drove around looking for him but I never saw him again and never saw the cap either.’

The girls saw the funny side of the story and laughed shyly.

‘After all it was just a cap, but I have never found one like it again.’ Henry laughed with them.

‘They were after the Nike icon.’ He added.

World Water Week

Water is a resource and has a value, which is the reason that someone designated 23 – 28 August 2015 as World Water Week. Not that the week has been overly celebrated – I have seen no reference to it in the local media.

Our water tank holds just over 5400 litres and I wasted half of it last night by forgetting to turn the tap off that fills a water trough for my sheep! ‘Wasted’ is not quite the right word because quite quickly the water will find its way to the river or evaporate to form clouds which will eventually turn to rain. Cycle complete.

The wastage is the power resource, in our case hydro-electricity, to pump the water from the river to the reservoir serving our small community.

The list of water related problems is as long as your arm!

Bore-water is now being used more extensively (and deeper) for agriculture and the underground water table (aquifer) takes 1400 years to replenish! Presumably there is a limit to the amount of groundwater that can be taken, and perhaps we are a long way from that point, but if the water is no longer stored underground, where will it go? A guess is it will cause more clouds/rainfall and fill the rivers and sea just a little bit more – a change in the balance.

There are important water statistics. Men are 60% water and women 55%. 70% of the earth’s surface is water and 2.5% of the water is ‘fresh’. Not much for the fresh water is drinkable and in the developed world the water supplies are treated for safe drinking, even though more of it is flushed down the toilet than actually drunk!

The inequity is that in developed countries, water usage per person is 300 – 600 litres, while in for example, Sub-Saharan Africa water usage is 10 – 40 litres per person.

We all know teenagers spend far too long in the shower and who turns the tap off between rinses and scrubbing their teeth? Good clean water running into the sewer!

At Mti Moja, families share the water in a muddy pond with cattle, donkeys and goats – the livestock urinate and defecate in the water that the families drink and cook with.

The women of Ilkirimuni walk with their donkeys to carry water that comes from a spring some 14 kilometres distant.

Piped water runs so slowly that women suck the water from the pipe and spit it into their buckets.

At many villages piped water runs for only a short period each day, the queue may be 40 people with buckets or drums and there are always some who go home empty bucketed.

There are those who think not of their fellow man. A boarding secondary school unwilling to invest properly in water reticulation allows students to bathe in a nearby creek – at the very source where a clean spring emerges from the ground. Downstream uses have to put up with soapy water (plus other matter) for household use!

Expats use water tankers to dampen road dust while further up the hill there is no water to be had so ferried water is purchased at the expense of household food supplies.

Piped water is stolen by farmers for irrigation of crops causing downland households to be without clean drinking water.

Remember those massive oil spills? Put into perspective they cover only a tiny percentage of the seas and coastlines – even so, though they are disastrous and generate widespread protest.

Some eight million tonne of waste plastic ends up in the oceans of the world each year with the probability that the tonnage will increase.

We are not on this planet alone, so we all have a responsibility to protect it.

Apparently the United States, Germany, France and China are the top plastic producers and it is the developing countries that cause the most pollution. Question the culpability.

As a lad, I was told that water in a stream running over gravels after travelling just one chain – that’s twenty metres – purifies itself. The statement is plainly absurd but statements like this justified polluting the rivers and oceans with garbage and sewage!

Today the lessons haven’t sunk in – despite some obvious improvements, the population surge brings with it uncontrollable waste.

There are dedicated people who care about world water and there some who perhaps go a little too far, but the average person on the street will only care if water doesn’t come out of their tap, or if it is discoloured.

Small things en masse will help, such as proper disposal of plastics (including disposable baby stuff), care with chemicals (sprays, soaps, shampoos and cleaning products) and flush only body waste into the sewer.

A little thought will go a long way!