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African Reflections Foundation — non-profit organization 501(c)(3)

Photographic essay

Water, and the day it shapes

Photographs from The Village Heart archive, arranged around the rhythm that water imposes on a village day.

01

The walk for water

Before a well exists, water is a journey — measured in kilometres, and paid for in hours that could have been spent at school or earning a living.

Portrait of a woman smiling, photographed in a Tanzanian village for The Village Heart.
From The Village Heart archive, 2016.
  • A woman carrying cooking pots through the doorway of her home in a Tanzanian village.
    Daily life at home.
  • A family sharing a morning meal together, seated on a mat outside their home.
    Morning routine — preparing breakfast for her children.
  • A woman pounding grain in a wooden mortar outside her home.
    Pounding grain.
  • A woman preparing food in the yard of her home, washing greens in a basin.
    Preparing food at home.

02

At home

Cooking, washing, feeding children. The book documents the ordinary work of a household, and how completely it depends on what comes out of a container.

Portrait of an older woman in a patterned headwrap, photographed in her village.
A community leader photographed for The Village Heart.
  • A schoolgirl in a white shirt and blue uniform smiling, seated outdoors.
    A pupil photographed for The Village Heart.
  • Women and children gathered with buckets at a village water point.
    Collecting water at a village water point.
  • A rendered and painted school building with an alphabet mural along its wall and pupils in the doorway.
    An improved school building, photographed for the same chapter.
  • A rural school building constructed from mud and sticks, with pupils outside and seated in the open classroom.
    The school building as documented in The Village Heart.

03

At school

Where a school has water, attendance holds. Where it does not, the children — usually the girls — are the ones sent to fetch it.

A student in school uniform seated outdoors, looking towards the camera.
At school.
  • School pupils sitting together outdoors during a break.
    Pupils at school.
  • A group of school pupils in uniform gathered closely together indoors.
    In the classroom.
  • A woman seated outside a thatched building in her village.
    At home in Kisele.
  • A woman bending to tend young crops in a cultivated field.
    Tending the group's crops.

04

The day the water arrives

The Village Heart records the moment a village water system is switched on: buckets, queues, and a great deal of noise.

A woman standing in a green field holding a stalk of grain, wearing a patterned headwrap.
In the fields — from The Village Heart archive.
  • A group of village women standing together with Maryvonne Pool, founder of African Reflections Foundation.
    With the women's groups and the Foundation's founder.
  • Women celebrating at a newly installed village water point, one carrying a bucket on her head.
    A village water point coming into use.
  • A large group of villagers gathered around a newly installed water tank.
    The village gathers at a completed water system.
  • A man drinking clean water straight from a village water point.
    Clean water at the point of use.

Every photograph on this page was made for The Village Heart between the Foundation's earliest field visits and the book's publication in 2016.

Read the book