Cover Story: Water Tank Fashion

by Phoenix McLaughlin

WaterTankFashion.PhoenixMcLaughlinYellow pants. When I look at that picture on the cover, my eyes struggle to move beyond the bright yellow pants. Who has pants like that? Nobody else that I know of. Anyone who wears those pants is clearly trying to make a statement, no matter what country you’re in.

The country these pants happen to be in is Ethiopia. The pants are in front of a public water tank in Kechene, a neighborhood of Addis Ababa. Wrenching my eyes from the bright yellow breeches, I see that the boy is wearing a green striped “Obama” shirt, a red and yellow long-sleeved shirt with a bubblegum-pink pocket, and a huge makeshift turban. And a belt buckle with a bejeweled golden dollar sign tops his yellow pants. In case the pants hadn’t already made it clear, this boy wanted to stand out. The boy knew he was looking good, and so while he was shy about talking to me, he was unabashed about moving to wherever my camera was pointing. It was only later that I fully processed how surreal the outfit was.

But before going there, some background. My research partner, Katie Petitt, and I were at the water tank to interview individuals about how water affects their lives. The neighborhood of Kechene is not connected to Addis Ababa’s water infrastructure, so the government built the water tank and fills it up twice a day for the locals. People pay the equivalent of a few cents per 25-liter jerry can to the collector at the door, and wait in line to get the water they need. The neighborhood is very spread out, so people have to walk long distances, up to seven kilometers, carrying the 50-pound jugs. Some larger families need over a dozen jerry cans a day, while some, largely single men, only need to get two or three. Regardless, it takes a lot of time and effort to get the water. This clearly creates significant opportunity costs for the community members spending many hours per week getting water instead of studying, working, or having a normal social life.

Someone from every household is required to go there about once a day. There are no breaks—not having water is simply not an option. As noted above, getting the water can take a decent amount of time, probably no less than fifteen minutes standing in line, plus much more to walk there. Therefore, you have everyone being forced to mingle with everyone else in the neighborhood for a little while every day. Time that may have been spent socializing with one’s friend group or family, or simply being alone, is instead replaced by community interaction. Initially I thought that this could be a good thing, a way to tie the community together. However, the opportunity for bonding seemed to be overshadowed by the fact that having to travel to get water was simply a huge pain. We interviewed a young girl who had gone there to get water after school, as she did every day. She made no effort to hide the fact that she did not want to be there. Despite there being many other kids her age, she clearly would rather have been hanging out with her other friends or family, or doing anything else other than that tiresome chore.

Returning to the yellow pants, the boy wearing them was taking advantage of one of the less obvious community effects of the water tank system: the water tank provides a performance space. He was attempting to turn the tiresome chore into something else entirely. With dozens of people gathered around at any given point, and hundreds cycling through over the course of a day, anyone looking to show something off has an audience. It was certainly not a typical setup—there is no stage or seats—but the area is surely a place where one can display their work, in this case an outfit, to a large number of people. How conscious of this the boy was, I do not know, but I can say he certainly milled about the area long after he was done getting water. He has decidedly less time to pursue his ambitions, perhaps such as being a fashion designer, since he has to spend a significant part of his day getting water. Not to be discouraged, the boy seemed to be doing his best to bring that ambition to the water tank and continued practicing his art there. It is hard to say how well this was working.

There may be a benefit in connecting the problems of boredom for the young girl and the hopes of self-expression for the young boy. The water tank could be something more interesting. Not to trivialize the very real development issue of the community having to use the water tank in the first place, which has serious economic and public health implications, but there is undoubtedly a connection between the social dynamics of the Kechene water tank and those of the stagnant and soul-sucking public spaces all over the world, from Indian police departments to American DMVs. Standing bored in a line is something that is, at this point, an experience almost universally shared by human beings. It may not be a matter of life and death, but it is certainly one of dignity at the very least. Not only are the people of Kechene required to trek to a tank to get vital water—they are treated to a lousy space when they get there, all mud, barbed wire, and quiet.

Why not make it a fashion show? Who knows where the boy’s coy push for expression could lead, but maybe his statement will manage to grow into a movement. Until the water infrastructure in Kechene improves, maybe the boy will revamp what it means to stand in a line. It can be a place to make a statement or a show, somewhere to take advantage of the otherwise rare occurrence of a congregated audience. Maybe the Kechene water tank will start a revolution in the use of public space all over the world. The boy will be famous! A model!

Daydreaming is hard to avoid when struck by such blinding yellow pants. Maybe things will not go so far, but seeing an outfit so surreal makes everything seem possible. The idea of the pants not starting a major cultural revolution seems impossible, even unjust. Who knows what will really happen—how the boy changes his community, if at all, is up to him and his neighbors. But one thing for sure is that he has an extraordinary outfit, and I am glad it caught my eye. I was lucky to be given that excuse to stop and focus, which can be difficult when surrounded by individuals who each have a story worth telling. Oddly enough it was a story told with no words exchanged that drew me in, but it was, for me, a compelling lesson in the many unexpected ways water affects lives.


Phoenix McLaughlin was a CCS Peacebuilder Fellow in Ethiopia this past summer, where he researched water conflicts. He is studying international political economy at Colorado College. He has worked at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., and the International Water Resources Association in Montpellier, France. His research interests are focused on conflict and the environment.

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