As my feet touches the muddy ground, …
The riverside is always muddy, … she said. It registers the footsteps of humans and nonhuman animals who visited the river—never gets tired. With the dark brown color of the soil and all the footsteps on it, the riverside looks lumpy but remains soft when you find yourself on it.

She continued, … I go to the river every day to fetch water. To reach the river, it takes at least two hours of walking from our village. It is neither fun nor safe to walk that far alone—every single day. So, we always go to the river in group. You know, every one of us wants an allay in such a long journey that we have to make every day. Each morning, after feeding breakfast to the family and deploying the cattle for grazing, we go out with our Ensiras (a water container made out of clay) on our backs to fetch water for daily cooking and cleaning activities.

After walking on dry landscape for hours, as we are getting close to the river, we first encounter different smell of the air. The smell is hard to describe, … it smells like, I would say, …. a new day! … The closer we get; we start to hear the sound of the river flowing gracefully on the river bed. The sound is, somehow, similar to listening to rain from inside a thatched roof house. … Right before we approach the river, the muddy ground by the riverside welcomes us. When my feet touches the muddy ground, … I feel … eternal. My presence in the muddy area makes me an active witness to the intimate relationship between water and soil. The presence of mud is a sign that confirms we are still in good hands. Yet, . … we don’t know how long that lasts. The amount of water in the river is getting less and less these days.

Every year in the fall, the community gathers by the riverside to show gratitude to the spirit of the river. We usually start preparing weeks before the actual day of the ritual. We gather and discuss how we can make the ritual-making ceremony better than last year and the year before. Women are usually more active in the process of organizing the annual ritual ceremony—it has been like that for centuries. We believe it is crucial to maintain such spiritual relationship with water. That way we can protect the river, as well as the women in our village, from being over-exploited than they already have.

Ritual ceremonies are very well attended—always full of joy with colorful dresses, songs, dances, prayers and blessings. It always passes quickly. The next day, like any other day, we go to the river to fetch water. The first thing I always notice as I reached the river is the endless number of footsteps recorded on the muddy ground. Usually, footsteps on the ground have a pattern—somehow to and from the direction of the river. But the days after the ritual gatherings, the muddy ground holds footsteps with multiple layers and directions. A large number of footsteps hold water on their molds that generate multiple tiny ponds in the area. Those tiny ponds are just traces of our collective presence and intention to maintain respectful relations with the river. It always gives me joy to witness those multiple footsteps and the water on their molds—so far, … muddy water.