Water is life no doubt, but pray tell me where do you dispose off your waste water?

I recently witnessed a hilariously sad event. Hilarious because i am an evil person and sad because it really was sad. It was one of those lazy days and i was just standing by my window gazing at the street below and hoping that Mr. Charming would pop from around the corner and make me his betrothed. My dreamy gaze was cut short by a plump woman down the street. She was heaving and panting in anger as she yelled a string of profanities that made me draw my curtains very fast.

There’s nothing as good as gossip on a boring afternoon, so i just stood by the window, curtains drawn and started separating the wheat and the shaft until finally i had an obscenity free story. It happened that the woman was on her way to a women’s chamaa. Then as she was passing below a nearby apartment, someone had decided to baptize her with unholy water; the kind that looks like the earth itself.

It’s a trend i have observed in many urban residential areas, especially where there are single units; the one that is just a house with four walls and nothing inside. In most places i have visited, there is a trench to dispose water outside the premises where tenants can pour waste water. People who stay on the fifth floor do not have time to carry waste water down the stairs so they just make it rain. There are also buildings that have pipes sticking from their ribs. These pipes drain waste water from the residential units to the street below.

This is the state of waste water disposal in our urban areas, despite clear guidelines in our laws that outline the correct ways of waste water disposal. Landlords should ensure that they have septic tanks for waste water disposal. Disposing water on a street is illegal and unhygienic. Then there are those who throw everything on the street from banana peels to used baby diapers. With such ways of living, does it surprise anyone that we are half a century old and still unblocking drains and having cholera outbreaks every now and then? Anyhow, it is what it is, man must live and shelter is a basic need. They also say the law is an ass, probably it got tired of carrying our waste disposal problems.

Nevertheless, i have some good tidings. Seeing that woman’s shower of embarrassment taught me a lesson or two. Lesson one, carry an umbrella and use it even if it is not raining. Lesson 2, wear shabby clothes when leaving the house, you will change in the bus or city council washroom. Feel free to adopt my lessons.