So many of my memories have been made whilst living on the farm that it is hard for me to find a beginning or an end. One point (there are some people that know me well enough to realise my points never normally stand still long enough to be made or to be put across) that constant comes to mind is that of our drinking water, or rather, the lack of it.
We are constant having problems with the drinking water on the farm because the reservoir/dam that the water is held in isn't closed up and so it's constantly dirty. Now, before I carry on let me just say that things have become better but not drastically so. also, when the reservoir runs out, the farm workers will sometimes pump through water from the big dam at the far side of the farm. The water from that dam most CERTAINLY isn't clean and not really fit for drinking, no matter how many time you purify it.
The little reservoir/dam where the drinking water is kept has only recently been closed up whereas before it used to stand open. This is where we picked up a lot of very big and smelly problems - baboons.
The local baboon tribe took to using our water reservoir as some sort of "punishing" routine for their young ones. When they didn't come if called they were dunked in and out of the water and then tossed aside.
Unfortunately, arguments frequently arose as to whose young ones were to blame for which crime and one day the wrong baby got dunked by a baboon NOT it's mother and the result was that within 20 minutes there were eight grown baboons left inside the reservoir whilst all the other ran off to get help. Problem is, they got rather distracted along the way and ended up forgetting all about their buddies who were left to drawn.
The worst of it is...we only found out 8 days later! By this time......oh, first of all, before I go further I should say that if you get squeamish easily you shouldn't read further.
Right, by this time the 8 baboons had effectively started to decompose and the first we knew about it was when we all got a serious case of stomach flu. My dad suggested we go and check the water reservoir and, when we did, it was all I could do not to cast up the accounts right there! It was very, very gross and so I left my dad and younger sister to delve deeper into the matter whilst I trotted home to a sweeter smelling environment.
It took a week or more to get proper water tanks in but at least they're there now and they are a definite improvement to baboon-flavored water!
HOORAY!
