Friday, October 28, 2011

Three days without water, how does it feel?

How does it feel to be without water for three days? We never know for sure because we are blessed with rain almost every day. Imagine what  life would be in desert if left alone for days. But how can we imagine hunger and thirst without experiencing one. How can we imagine love if we never had one. We can go down the list: poverty, pain, anger, sadness, joy....... etc.

Tanah Merah was without running water for three days recently. Yeap, River Kelantan still flowing, rain do drop almost every other day but tap was completely dry. Since modern life is made so dependent on tap water, anything wrong with the distribution system will affect us. The other day, the big pump broke down, replacements had to be imported, so tap was dry for three days. They did send tankers to ease hardship, yes a basic emergency procedure. But modern life itself can't effectively cope even with good recovery efforts........ Since there was only two of us in the house, we went on low consumption measure and rationing usage. Our neighbour at the front with 8 children would suffer more.

I remembered how  Melaka in 1991 had to go through it's worst water  crisis when Durian Tunggal reservoir dried up after a prolonged drought. Millions of dollars had to be pumped in to handle water crisis; diverting water from other states, and sending planes up to do cloud seeding. Melaka Water Board finally had a new boss ...........Without trying to be too judgmental, we do accept that history of mankind was punctuated with crisis, fallen heroes, rising stars, and scape goats ......

Then another problem appeared right in front of us. Our own fertigation system! So I resorted to manual mode, rationing water to just once a day. Huh, how they cried, yellowing every leaves they had, ripening every chili they held, to survive on low water mode. It should take longer than three days to see us humans succumb to starvation ..... Like us, chili plants are fighters too. Trying to emerge as winners against all odds, is still within their DNA make-ups.  To survive against drought, to stay sane, to stay relevant is to see the light of tomorrow......
pic1 ~ chili leaves yellowing, chili ripening, thirsty.

pic 2 ~ chili so small, yet potent.

pic 3 ~ Kakdah picking ripe chili from 90 plants

pic 4 ~ chili plants looked so healthy 2 weeks ago


A lady from the far end, asked for 3 kilos. She runs a restaurant nearby. I didn't know how much Kakdah charged that day. With Thailand still suffering from flood which effectively reduced vegetable imports across the border, Kakdah should know how much to charge. A full time housewife, but there is no stopping for her to know the rule of supply and demand. She has  mental record of her chili sales...... I wouldn't ask.



bangchik and kakdah
Tanah Merah Kelantan

12 comments:

  1. water nothing can live without it...we need the sun we need water...in Arizona USA it was said if you were in the desert you needed at least a gallon of water every day to survive...people crossing the border died every summer because they had no water...I've been through hurricanes where the power was off for days...when I was a kid we had a hand pump in addition to the electric pump to pump water from the well...in Florida USA we buy bottled water to survive when the water spigots are dry...how nice that you have a relief system in place that brings water to you...very difficult for your plants though...hoping everything is back to normal soon for all without water

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  2. banyaknya pokok cili. Are you going to bring some to Johor potting it into containers? Cili banyak in demand ya which is good.

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  3. Those areas here which suffered flood also didn't have water for drinking, that is really the irony of our modern lives. So the Social Welfare people and other organizations brought water to them, who were on the roofs of their homes. I love your loving description for Kakdah regarding the mental reference to supply and demand. Our vegies here suffered extreme price hikes too because the vegetable producing areas in the highlands of Cordilleras, like your Cameron highlands suffered from typhoons and can't reach Manila due to flooding and landslides on the way. Oh life! But that's a lot of chili to pick!

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  4. Theanne and Baron
    - we can't win all. I suppose elasticity of life has it's limit. Water is number one. On death, I guess many died due to excess of water in floods, hurricanes, tsunamis ets..... and that is ironic. Yes, we need water, but too much of it will kill....

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  5. Malay-Kadazan girl
    - chili plants to be left here.... someone else will look after plants and fertigation system. It's business take over!....

    - about demand for chili, a friend was saying how people throw as much as they use....

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  6. Your chillies look very good. 3 days without water is terrible. I guess the daily rainfall helped to some extent.

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  7. Water, water, not a drop to drink...
    Our country is blessed with abundant rainfall but when taps run dry, we have to learn to cope. wait for tankers, economize, etc..

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  8. That's really a disaster to live without water!

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  9. Great blog with a lot informaton..
    Great picture from D80 ;-)

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  10. Andrea....
    - What rain can do to us.., flood, vegetable price hike. Sufferings at both ends, too much or too little.

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  11. One
    ~ technology with its limitation. Large scale vegetable farming does require wells (or perigi) as backups.

    Keats The Sunshine Girl
    ~ Never heard anyone died of thirst in Malaysia..... we are blessed somehow.

    Malar
    ~ yeap, water is the essence of life.

    Ambo
    ~ thanks for dropping by. Time is getting very tight for photography lately....

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  12. I am from Melaka and I remember the 1991 incident where we had no water supply from our taps. I was a student in Klang Valley and returned to Melaka for the weekend. Neighbours were asking why I returned to use the limited water supply the state had then! We had to draw water from wells. It was an event that is etched in our mind for a long time.

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