In praise of the humble ‘bidon’.

"What' a jerry can?" asked the G1 students as they were checking words in the dictionary in order to list items made from plastic when completing a writing assignment.

"Jerry cans chez moi - in my country - are usually metal and used for carrying fuel, rather than the plastic *bidon that we use here to carry water," I replied.

"Well, what do you use to carry your water?" was the surprised rejoinder.

"We don't go to fetch water; it comes to us. We go to the tap - in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in lots of places in the house."

"You must be very rich in England," was their conclusion.

I mentally ‘photoshopped’ into a typical high street scene bidons balanced on people’s heads. It’s certainly not part of the English scenery! For a start, the average woman isn’t strong enough to carry 20 kg on her head. But here a bidon is a necessary kitchen utensil. Bidons are carried to the river (for free but dirty water), to the spring (for cleaner water suitable for drinking), to the standpipes (where you have to pay for the right to use the water in that locality). There are always rows of yellow bidons lined up by the standpipes in the morning and the evening when I go to and come from school. Yellow is the colour of the town. The arrival of 3L and 5L vegetable oil containers has made life much easier for the little ones. The children - boys included - carry one or two of these child-sized bidons down to the river to fetch water. The yellow plastic bidon is ubiquitous here.

I guess we are rich because we have piped water, but even though we have pipes supplying our house with water and taps to control it, it doesn’t mean there is water in those pipes. We didn't have running water for a week or so. Enquiries and 'walking the line' uncovered a clogged-up section of underground pipe that had to be dug up, cleaned and flushed out. So we (i.e. our workers) had to get water from elsewhere - in the yellow bidons - and we were hauling and pouring and heating the 'hint-of-kerosene' perfumed water. The water is flowing again now. And it will be automatically heated since it's safe to turn on the electric heater. Yes, we are rich.

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." John 4:15

Blessings,

Bridget

*Bidon - technically translates from French as ‘can/tin’ but here it denotes the plastic container which is used originally to deliver fuel and paint.