3 · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, October 22, 2009 Water means survival for Rwandan villagers Continued from page 1 life-altering adventure that began with a lark. Now, as thousands join the annual "dip," the funds raised are funding clean water projects to bring life to others. As the Polar Bear Dip approaches its 25th anniversary and funds World Vision water projects, the Courages recently visited Africa to see the results. It was a life-changing experience. The 2009 dip raised more than $55,000, about half the cost of the $120,000 Kahi water project. The 2010 25th anniversary edition hopes to raise the other half. The project is drilling wells, springs and bore holes in the community where water-borne disease and parasites are prevalent and droughts have left no reliable access to safe water. Only one-third of families in the area draw water from a protected source. The rest rely on contaminated water from shallow, hand-dug wells, swamps and ponds. While the Courages can reflect on the good they are doing, they are also now reflecting on how fortunate they are. "It really was a roller coaster of emotions," said Trent. While the brothers saw progress, it truly is just a drop in the bucket of what needs to be done. They also saw things that made their hearts sink, others that they wouldn't repeat. Still, what stands out in their minds is the image of smiling, happy kids. Those kids fashion a soccer ball from dried banana leaves and twine and share it with a dozen others during their only play time, recess. They eagerly listen to a teacher as they sit at a rough hand-hewn desk in a clay hut that boasts a dirt floor and a blackboard -- in a makeshift school uniform. They attend in one of three daily school shifts -- shifts designed to work around their task of gathering and transporting water home. Children -- who are heads of 65 per cent of the households -- are seen everywhere in Rwanda. Many don't have parents -- the result of HIV/AIDS or, more likely, the genocide that ravaged the African country some 15 years ago. Children are not often seen playing, said Trent. "They just don't have time." Now back at home with daily life ensuing as usual, Trent said it's comical, if not sad, when he sees people fret over being cut off on the road. "Life there (in Rwanda) is all SUBMITTED BY THE COURAGE BROTHERS HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE: Trent and Todd Courage carry water jugs from a well to Kahi, Rwanda, under the watchful eyes of many of the young villagers, who make the trip at least once a day. about survival," said Todd. People there have no time to make progress -- their time is spent on survival. When you consider that clean water, which Todd calls the "essence of life," can relieve disease and death, can sustain life and livestock, irrigate crops for food, and enables clean clothes and cooking, the importance of that so-called human pipe is apparent. When you consider that the usual government means of providing infrastructure -- taxation -- is not available because there is no point in taxing people, who have nothing, the obstacles to eliminating the pipe are apparent. While children may spend many hours and much effort transporting water to their families, if it is dirty or contaminated, they are wasting their young lives in a valiant attempt that simply brings death to their door. On the Courages' first day in Africa, they witnessed the opening of a spring. A ribbon of toilet paper was cut and the ceremony attended by those in the community ended with singing that translated "the end of disease, the end of death." They saw a woman washing clothes in water from a mudhole of standing water that was overgrown with plant life and used by cattle. Todd said when they asked her if anyone in her family had gotten sick from the water, she cried and indicated the baby on her back had bloody diarrhea -- a sure sign of cholera. The trip from Oakville to Africa was long. It was miles away and Todd said there is no real transition. "You're just smacked in the face with it," he said of life in Africa. While they tried to prepare ahead for what they would see, the brothers said images on television are not the same as witnessing it firsthand. Though they landed at the airport and the city of Kigali where they stayed was modern, several hours of travel saw them venture to a different world -- communities where electricity was not even considered. This was a world of clay houses, fashioned of bricks and mortar hand-made from a hand-dug pit. These dwellings have a five-year lifespan. They have mud floors, no lights, windows without glass and a quartet of rooms -- a family room where homework and eating is done, a children's bedroom, adult's bedroom and a storage room for food supplies. Sleeping can be three or more to a twin-sized bed. The kitchen is a separate building where embers are always alight. Washrooms also separate areas styled in a variety of makeshift manners. A pile of clothing that Todd said would get washed once a day at his home, is washed once a month and will last a family of four a year. Cornmeal is a dietary staple, but it may be bananas that most of the people consume for their daily meal, said Todd. That is life in Kahi, Rwanda. This is a land where 45 per cent of the population suffers from malnutrition. Only 68 per cent has access to clean water. Sixty per cent live below what the Courages call "extreme" poverty. Eating means one meal a day. While much of the population is young, only 70 per cent go to school -- and life expectancy is 45 years. "That struck me because I'm 46," said Todd. Their mother's presence on the trip amazed some of the residents as the woman is fit and active and past 45. The residents are pleased to welcome white people, who are still an oddity, but a welcome one. Pride of home ownership is apparent, said Todd, who noted sweep marks are visible in the front yard clay and bushes, planted like hedges, are pruned to perfection. While World Vision supplies the tools with which clean water projects are carried out, the communities themselves provide the labour and learn to manage the system. The Courages described and offered video of a new spring, which is built to constantly flow, is filtered by rocks and sand and, when not used to fill water jugs, flows on to trenches dug to provide irrigation to crops. A new bore hole, well or spring is by no means running water through plumbing via unheard of faucets in the clay huts -- but it can begin to properly sustain life. Breakfast Television Live Eye host Jennifer Valentyne, who began covering the dip for City TV and is now a supporter of the dip and World Vision, went along on the trip, which will be featured in a mini World Vision documentary. It will be, however, the resilience of people that the Courages will remember about Africa. It will take them past the memories of the genocide memorials -- a church in which they saw the bloodied clothes of persons crammed in pews and slaughtered, the bloodstained remains of an altar and the graves of those who perished -- rooms stacked with skulls obviously scarred by machetes and loose bones of unidentified victims. It will even take them past the day they sat in on a genocide reconciliation session, in which the man who hacked off a young woman's hand and whacked at her face with a machete looked her in the eyes as the two halves of Rwanda's remaining population takes part in government-led reconciliation efforts. `Never again' is the motto that came out of the genocide that saw one half of Rwanda's population pitted against the other, said Trent. "I can't even imagine sitting there while the guy next to you says he's the one who cut off your hand, killed your baby and husband," said Trent. What the Courages did bring home -- besides a yellow water jug was the urge to tell others what they saw -- and the vast need they witnessed. They are mounting the 25th anniversary of the Polar Bear Dip to complete fundraising for the $120,000 water project -- and then carry on with others. Every year when the polar bear dippers run out of the frigid waters of Lake Ontario with smiles on their invigorated faces, Todd said he'll remember the smiles of the children in Africa. The dip has raised $420,000 and has attracted people from near and far. In 2008, it raised $60,000 for South Darfur, Sudan. In 2007, $40,000 was raised for the Kandiaye and Saré Yéroyel communities in Senegal. In 2006, $35,000 was raised for the Masima community in Kenya. To find out more about the Courages' trip, the upcoming New Year's Day Polar Bear Dip, to volunteer, sponsor or take part, visit www.polarbeardip.ca.