A dripping tap

A wise man once wrote that a nagging wife and the constant dripping of water are alike. I thank the Lord every day that I don't have the former, however upon taking ownership of our new house five days ago I discovered we have the latter in the form of a dripping tap in the bathroom.

Since I was neither equipped nor ready to replace the washer, I put the plug in the bath and left it. This temporary damming was to figure out how much water was being wasted, and to catch it for watering the garden later. After roughly 5 days of dripping the bath was full!

The almost full bath

A quick web search revealed that a standard bathtub holds approximately 200 litres of water. A simple sum reveals that the previous owner was wasting about 1200 litres of water a month and that just in the master bathroom.

Over the few days we have had the house we have found 3 more leaking taps. Amazingly (or perhaps worryingly) two of the taps have algae growing in the micro river course created by the dripping water. It would seem that the previous owner was DIY averse. When we texted her to find out where the water meter and shutoff valve were I got the impression that she had never turned off the water in the 10 years she lived in the house. I wonder for how many years these taps have been dripping?

According to the Rand Water website, demand for water in South Africa will outstrip supply in 2025. They are promoting various water saving initiatives to try stretch the water the country does have. These initiatives however are unlikely to be enough and eventually South Africa will have to increase supply (perhaps by building more dams or finding alternative sources, e.g. desalination).

In the 80's two economists postulated that increased energy efficiency would lead to an increase in demand for energy. This paradoxical idea is called the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate. The explanation for the increased use is as follows (from wikipedia): "Increased energy efficiency can increase energy consumption by three means. Firstly, increased energy efficiency makes the use of energy relatively cheaper, thus encouraging increased use. Secondly, increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use in the whole economy. Thirdly, increased efficiency in any one bottleneck resource multiplies the use of all the companion technologies, products and services that were being restrained by it."

Whether this can be directly applied to the South African water situation can be debated, however I think what's clear is that individuals and companies have an obligation to save water where we can while also lobbying local government to increase the supply.

I will be fixing the dripping taps at my new house and installing a tank to collect rain water for watering the garden. What are you doing to save water?

Fork

Fork, a photo by jdkvirus on Flickr.

I captured the image above at the cutlery second-hand "store" down the road from our house in Karen, Nairobi. The store consists of several tables under a tree arrayed with cutlery, pots, pans and other assorted kitchen items.

This kind of shop finds it's roots in another Kenyan (perhaps East African) tradition called Mitumba. This is a Swahili term which literally means "bundles" and refers to bundles or bales of 2nd hand clothes donated in the west and then sold in bales to local merchants who then sell them on.

It's common place here in Kenya for people to go to the Mitumba for their clothes shopping. In Nairobi the largest and most famous Mitumba is Toi Market, located on the outskirts of Kibera slum. It is known as THE place to shop for cheap 2nd hand clothes. Almost all the big western brands are available here at very low prices (a fraction of the cost of the high street boutiques). The only real draw-back is that you won't necessarily find what you want in your size!

The knives and forks on sale down the road from our house have similar origins, the left overs from European and American tables. Finding matching sets is tricky, but if you're looking to outfit your kitchen cheaply, this is a good place to pick-up quality flatware.

Forks have been in use as eating utensils from the 2nd century AD, but only came into common use in Western Europe in the 10th century! I wonder what those early Westerners would have thought of these piles of 2nd hand forks? For an interesting history on forks be sure to read the Wikipedia entry.

The image above is one of the few black and white images I have produced amongst the tens of thousands of photos I have taken over the last 10 years that I have been taking my photography seriously. As an aside, I have always pondered the name "black & white" as its more like "shades of grey", but I suppose there is a sexiness to "black and white"!

One of reasons I take so few black and white images is that I am addicted to color! I usually find my inspiration in nature where color abounds, even at the most minute scale. The flower below is an example of the range of color in nature.

Natural architecture , a photo by jdkvirus on Flickr.

The first computer screens were true monochrome - white, green or amber on black. I remember my family's first PC was an XT with an amber screen. It was 1986 and I was one of the coolest kids on the block! Times have changed.

These early monochrome screens could display shades of grey, or degrees of brightness that emulated grey, but nowhere near as many tones required to display a meaningful black & white image. These days standard computer screens can display 16.7 million colors (or shades of them anyway). I wonder how they measure this? Perhaps a subject for a future blog? Even Apple's Ipad can display over 65,000 colors/shades!

So why so few black & white? Well perhaps it's in celebration of the ability of technology to reproduce the amazing spectrum of God's creation?! Nevertheless, enjoy the rarity of this black & white image - at least on this blog!