Rainy Season is Cholera Season

This year's corn and rice crops have just been planted, and food is scarce. Many people go out into the bush and along roadsides to forage for food, cutting greens and diging tubers. Because of the lack of basic sanitation this puts many people at risk of getting cholera. Let me explain. There are no public restrooms in or around Zomba. In fact on the road trip to Blantyre, 40km away, there are no public restrooms, and many of the villages do not even have latrines. In rainy season, the waste that is runoff from fields contaminates the vegetation and water sources and causes cholera.

This past Saturday we were supposed to go inspect five additional broken wells, however the torrential rains from Wednesday through Friday prevented us from going. We're hoping that we'll be able to get out there this morning, and placing them on the schedule to restore very soon.  Again, this is cholera season, and when people don't have a clean water source, they'll get it wherever they can, which very often will be a dirty river or lake, or in utter desperation, a filthy mud hole.