LITTLE ZINO

Once upon a time, long ago, there lived a certain village in the middle of a desert called Namark. The town of Namark was a small one filled with elderly people and their children and loved ones who lived their lives in a quiet and peaceful manner. It was a small but beautiful village with hardly any violence or war. Neighboring towns often envied how beautiful and peaceful the town of Namark was compared to theirs.

However, they had just one problem. The village was situated in the heart of the desert and so water was relatively scarce. Their people struggled with draught as there was never enough water to go round to everyone. The little reservoir of water they had, that flowed slowly from an underground supply, was being rationed and heavily guarded by the town’s chiefs. Each person was only allowed a certain amount of water per day. Once a person's water finishes for the day, he/she has to wait for the next day before they can have access to water again.

For a long time, this system worked in keeping them alive and ensuring their survival. No one bathed in the town. It was unheard of, seen as an act of waste. Bathing was a luxury they didn't have. As long as one had a little water to keep them a little hydrated and stay alive, that was all that mattered. The system ensured everyone had at least some amount of water to drink per day. But as the days continued to pass by, it was no longer enough. The villagers were becoming frustrated and tired. Their people began dying slowly due to lack of water. Only the strong could survive the extreme dryness because Namark was not a place for weakness.

So often, people would suddenly slump to the ground that it became nothing of a surprise to the villagers. They knew the cause and the end result. It was a normal routine; the village healer would come to tend to the person, an enormous amount of water would be needed to be given to the person, more than the village could supply, and the person would die slowly out of thirst.

One day, Zino, a small girl about ten years old, and her mother were in the town's square, when yet again another person slumped to the ground. People looked at the body with pity, unfazed by what they saw. It was a normal occurrence. They knew the end result. The villagers continued with their activities in a somber mood. There was nothing they could do to help those kinds of people when it happened. It was only a painful reminder that anyone could be the next victim. Little Zino stood at a corner, staring at the old man slumped on the ground, struggling for his life as thirst drove him to an early grave.

“Mummy, let's help him", Zino begged her mother.

" My angel, there's nothing we can do. "We don't have enough for ourselves not to talk more about helping others”, her mother said, crouching down to her level, wiping off the tears from her eyes as she spoke.

“Alright mummy” she said, sniffing.

Soon, Zino’s mother fell ill. It began with weakness. Gradually, she could no longer have the energy to move. She remained in bed from dusk till dawn, day in, day out. It continued for a week until the healer was called to check up on her, and it was the same thing. She needed lots of water, as fast as possible. Her body was slowly giving up.

Source

One day, Zino stood at the door of her mother's bedroom with teary eyes as she stared at her mother's sleeping form on the bed. She was all she had. Her father passed away long ago when she was a baby. She had no siblings, no relatives she knew of. Just her and her mother. She could not sit still and just watch her die. Her mother had been there all her life. With a strong need to save her mother, her mind began thinking of ways to create more water. She thought to herself; if maybe she could find a way to create more water to give her mum, then she would not die.

And so she began an invention. The strong need to save her mother drove her. She went around from house to house, collecting pieces of electronics, battery parts and anything useful she could get her hands on. She studied the weather in the daytime and also at night, discovering new things about it. Soon she found a way of extracting drops of water out of the air when it was cool at night. She called it the Extractor. She placed it at the top of her roof one night and connected a long pipe to it to the buckets on the ground. When she woke up the next morning, the bucket was half filled up. She was elated. She quickly gave her mother some water to drink.

With that as encouragement, she worked harder, making more of this extractor. She discovered that if the air was cooler it would produce more water. So she found a way to place the extractors on top of the trees in the village forest and, as expected, the next day, they filled many buckets with water. Soon her mom had recovered fully and could now move about with a lot of energy. Those who saw her were surprised as to how she recovered fully and quickly. They began asking questions. Soon enough, the town chiefs summoned Little Zino and pleaded with her to share her inventions with them so they too could make more water. And so she did.

Gradually, Zino's extractor became famous all over the village of Namark. Each house began making their own extractors and with time, the whole village of Namark shifted from a draught-filled place to a village of invention driven by the necessity to create more water.