Mariam

We met Mariam on her way to the wadi, the river that runs on one side of the camp.  She and her niece, Hawa, were carrying buckets and a digging tool to go collect mud for the building of a latrine at their home.  We later found out that Hawa was also carrying her little baby girl, just four months old.  Mariam told me that this was not the first time doing this run; they had come and gone many times.  It had taken them two days to dig the latrine and now one more full day working on the top of it.  When talking with Mariam, she laughed most of the time.  She laughed when I asked her age.  Who knows, she said.  Fifty or sixty or something!