Of water affairs and women

In a fortnight where racial and gender issues, The President, rape, sexuality and AIDS all took top honours in the news, I was convinced that Fred had been "ex-communicando" or out of the country, to make such a statement. With my Windhoek Lager to hand and Fred with his Klippies and water, no ice, I was determined to find out what on earth he was thinking.

The advertisement had been placed by 'the dwaf' in August in the Mail and Guardian.

The illustration in the advertisement, that of an elongated statue of an African woman with a gourd on her head, said it all. It evoked old memories of an Africa in which women were the bearers not only of children, but also of life's other essentials, water and wood. In the rural and poorer communities this is sadly, still too often, the case. Honouring the women's role in water management touched an old truth. After all, cooking, cleaning and life itself is reliant on water, and women do still take the lead in the domestic management of these issues.

Why not honour that role, formally, even if there is the possibility that this could entrench stereotypes that are best forgotten, we argued. And, after all, it took the mighty Queen Victoria (not a male Scottish engineer) to recognize that the festering and diseased city of Glasgow needed clean water, not much else, to make it an environment worthy of human habitation.

If the advertisement had been placed in the latest issue of "Sports Illustrated" (the women in swimsuits edition) the meaning would have been altered fundamentally and perhaps, with more power, we mused.

Elsewhere in the same edition of the "Mail and Guardian", Mbeki's blast and the counter-blast of accusations of racism, male sexuality and AIDS were aired fully. It was comforting that behind the scenes, there were things happening of more practical and immediate life changing import. The supply of piped clean water is, after all, so basic a need.

We left the pub wishing "the dwaf" (The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry) all the best in improving matters of womanhood, water and wood.