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A man collects water from a cistern cut into a Za Baobab (Adansonia za).
In this very dry region where it rains only a few times, if at all, each year, the local population cut out holes in Za Baobab trees to make cisterns which are filled with rain water for use during the June to December dry season. A cistern can hold several thousand litres of water and while each tank belongs to a single family the water it contains is available to any passerby. Furthermore, each baobab tree has a name, this one is Malaindrano ('He who hates water') because it is so big that people have the impression that it is never filled.
In this very dry region where it rains only a few times, if at all, each year, the local population cut out holes in Za Baobab trees to make cisterns which are filled with rain water for use during the June to December dry season. A cistern can hold several thousand litres of water and while each tank belongs to a single family the water it contains is available to any passerby. Furthermore, each baobab tree has a name, this one is Malaindrano ('He who hates water') because it is so big that people have the impression that it is never filled.
Pascal Maitre/Panos Pictures 15 Jun 2019
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