Living Water

My teeth are chattering on this bumpy road. The fog just gave way to light rain. Ikumbi Health Center is about 7 clicks behind us.

Post-election violence rocked this region not too long ago. Three tribes, all at once, seemed to want to concentrate on being three different tribes instead of remembering that they are all Kenyan. The plastic tents on my right, filled with children and women and families, remind me that when tribes fight, there are always IDP’s. Homes lost, communities torn apart. People classified, named, perhaps more self-aware than they have ever been. Fear and insecurity are now a part of life more than ever before.

This entire area, a catchment of 15,000 people, breathes the same air and drinks the same river water.

The river does not care what tribe you are.

And when you get sick, you end up at Ikumbi Health Clinic.

Living Water International has torn the place up. A leftover mound of dirt from drilling in one spot, deep trenches for pipes everywhere, a pump house and community tap both in construction. It’s beautiful.

David Kamanga tells me that people are “coming together” over this beautiful mess.

“This water will bring these people together,” he tells me. He talks about the violence that occurred here. And he knows that this mess will be transformed into the only clean water in the area. He calls it “healing water.”

His words. Not mine.

I am still trying to take this all in. You see, David also oversees Ikumbi Clinic. He held a report showing crazy typhoid, worms, diarrhea, and amoeba counts, but he seemed more excited about “healing” and “peace” and “bringing this community together.” Because this will be a community well, tribal aspirations and assertions become displaced by visions of unity and health and redemption.

I hope that today you are encouraged to hear that on a mound of dirt, backed up to a mess of trenching and construction, a man named David Kamanga declared that a water well would bring all tribes together. It would be “healing water.”