The Black Mamba Watering Hole By Carley Belanger

We live in a world where getting 10,000 steps a day has become a must, a goal, a trend, almost an addiction. We walk to close our rings, hit our targets, and maybe look a little more like the fit influencers we see online.

I’ve done it too, pacing through airports to make sure I hit that magic number, frustrated if I don’t. But during a recent visit to Chizaga-Olemelok, a remote village in Tanzania, I realized something that changed the way I think about movement entirely.

For me, walking 10,000 steps is a luxury. For the women here, walking is survival.

Chizaga-Olemelok village is home to just over  3,000 people. The women’s daily walk isn’t for exercise or for some trend; it’s for water. They walk nearly 20 kilometers a day or close to 27,000 steps.

Their days begin at 5 a.m., when they set out on a four-hour trek to the local watering hole, which depends entirely on the rainy season. There, a team of women works together in a 15-foot-deep pit. They form a human chain, passing buckets up one by one all while clinging to the edge to avoid falling in. They move in rhythm, working together to provide for their families and children.

This water has no options for purification. It’s mixed with mud, bacteria, and debris. After hours under the scorching sun, they begin the return journey home around 5 p.m.just in time to start cooking dinner.

As I watched the women working together in the pit, I was struck by their strength both physically and mentally.

“I’ve made this walk my whole life,” said one village elder, Leah Samson Mtoro,a 59-year-old mother of seven. “I want my children to live differently.”

This village is considered fortunate because a handful of families own donkeys to help carry the heavy containers home. Each donkey costs around $100 USD, a fortune for most. Others rely on renting donkeys from neighbors when they can.

Not only is it extremely dangerous to enter and exit the watering pit , due to the depth, but there’s also one major threat that lurks within.

This threat can reach 10 feet in length. It has a deadly bite that can cause death in 20 minutes and is one of Africa’s most feared animals, the black mamba. It inhabits their only source of water. Entering or exiting the pit can become a game of chance.

“No one dares to kill it,”Leah Samson Mtoro, explained. “If you see it, you have to stay calm and wait for it to go.”

When the rainy season comes, they never know if the mamba will be waiting.

The physical toll is immense. The mental strength is greater. Many women shave their heads to save water, a small act of practicality that speaks volumes about daily scarcity.

“If we had clean water,”  Swailii Mchuluza Mgema, mother of 5, said, “we could rest. We could care for our children. We could live without fear.”

So the next time you go out to get your 10,000 steps, think of the women of Chizaga-Olemelok village walking nearly triple that and in flip-flops! Not for fun. Not for fitness. Not to listen to a favorite podcast. But for water. For one single drop.

Our steps may not cover the same distance as theirs but take the first step with us in helping these women gain access to safer, snake-less, healthier, clean water.

For them, a donation doesn’t just make a small difference it will completely change their entire lives.

Here are the faces your donation will support:

The women of Chizaga-Olemelok village