Water Connects all things, brings movement, gives life

Without water , there is no life and there will be no life.

Water is like the lifeblood of the earth.

I wake in the morning and stumble out of bed, put the jug under the clay filter and turn on the tap. I listen to the sound of the water hitting the bottom of the jug. When it's full I pour water into the kettle, another liquid sound. Switch on the kettle and more water noises begin, as it takes the water to boiling point, which here at 1,500 meters above sea level is significantly lower than at sea level. 

I fill the Italian coffee maker with hot water and coffee grounds and put it on the stove. In a few minutes it's gurgling. I pour the dark black, almost thick liquid into our two cups, dilute it with more boiled water and some milk. We sip the coffee together, listening to the sound of water on the tin roof, a steady pattering that has been going for most of the night. 

With my coffee drunk, I put on waterproofs and go out to pump water from the tanks  on the north side of the house into the big storage pool. Water from the south side roofs goes straight into the pool. The 5,000 litre tanks are full and will soon overflow if I don't empty them. We try to catch and store every drop from our roofs during the rainy season. 

The rain eases mid-morning and the sun comes out as I walk around my small dryland cropping areas. Everywhere, water is glistening and sparkling on leaves. The plants all glow, water-content. The rains have been good this year. 

There's nothing I can do today in the cropping areas today, as anything I do will damage the water-laden soil. Instead, I take my granddaughter for a walk on the Domboshawa hills, She spends hours playing in the rock pools, filled with water at this time of the year. I sit and enjoy the view, sitting in the shade of a tree growing out of the rock. I also marvel at the yellows and oranges of the lichens that Domboshawa is well known for, almost psychedelic. I see clouds building in the distance, another rainstorm likely in the late afternoon. We head home before any danger of lightning, not a good idea being exposed on a big, open rock. 

The storm breaks as we arrive home. We rush inside getting very wet in the short distance between car and kitchen door. Now it's impossible to hear each other with the sound of the rain pummelling the tin roof. Lucky that I emptied those tanks in the morning. I have a shower and enjoy the water warmed by the solar heater flowing down over my body. The water removes both dirt and any stress. From morning until night, water connects my days in a myriad of ways.