Spring in Bavaria

They live by the shores of a big lake but survive on ponds

The saying that the man who lives by the river washes his face with spittle resonates with the water scarcity that dogs Uyoma, in Bondo District.

A woman draws water from Wang’arot pan in Manera village of Rarieda District. The pan, which serves a population of a bout 5,000 people, is faced with extinction unless it rains soon. Photo/JACOB OWITI

Millicent Akinyi, 26, understands this better than anyone else. For the better part of her life in Waringa Village, Akinyi has been waking up as early as 5am to begin the search for the rare commodity.

The single mother of one makes six round trips, covering 36km on her bicycle daily, in search for the commodity. 

This, she gets from a murky Wang’arot pond in Munera village across the border in Rarieda District. 

The pond, the only one left after others dried up due to the ongoing drought, now serves 10 villages including Waringa, with an estimated population of 5,000 people. 

With a rough terrain to contend with, Akinyi’s journey to the pond is obviously exhausting and lasts about five hours, but she has done it repeatedly for many years.

Like Akinyi, many other women wake up early, with the task of filling their pots weighing them down.

Those who do not own bicycles have to wake up even earlier and trek long distances in search of the commodity.

As is the case in many arid and semi-arid parts of the country, water is such a scarce product, that searching for it becomes a daily routine for women in Bondo and Rarieda districts.

According to the secretary of Wang’arot pond community management committee, Mr Kepha Odhiambo, men are left to tend to their gardens while women wake up early to fetch water.

The closest the area has come to having clean water was way back in 1984 when the Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) dug a borehole. But it no longer functions and today lies abandoned. Even when it was functional, its water was too salty to drink. 

Currently, none of the villagers contemplate digging another one due to the prohibitive costs involved, says Samson Akungu, a retired civil servant and a resident of Waringa.

The delay of the long rains has only brought more misery and worry to the likes of Akinyi.

Forced to walk

“The other ponds have dried up because of lack of rain,” says Akungu, as he points at Koremo pond, three kilometres away, that has since dried up.

The residents are worried that with the rains that are yet to fall, the Wang’arot pond could also dry up.

“This is our last hope or else we will be forced to walk to the lake (Victoria) to fetch water,” says a dejected Akungu.

The distance to the lake is approximately 12km from where Akinyi stays.

More worry, however, emerges as one samples the muddy water that these people fetch for their domestic use. 

At Wang’arot pond, Akinyi and other women share the filthy water with livestock that pollute it.

One must wade through the mud to get to the deeper section which is believed to be cleaner. But this argument is neither here nor there since the whole pond looks brown with suspended solids coupled with water algae. 

This notwithstanding, people have to get water at whatever cost, causing congestion at the pond.

“It is this bad. We use dirty water despite Lake Victoria sitting not so far away from us,” laments Akinyi.

Once at home, the process of treating the water begins. This takes equally a lot of time and of course more money. 

“It is costly to treat water considering that most of us are unemployed,” she said.

On average, the residents of this area spend Sh100 on water treatment tablets a day. What irks them most is that after the decantation process, half of what they fetch turns out to be mud. Needless to say, the risk of contracting waterborne diseases looms over them. 

“Some time back, my legs began to itch and after a short while, they became swollen,” says one woman, as if to confirm our fears of rampant waterborne diseases.

In such a place, with stagnant water, one cannot rule out the risk of waterborne disease such as bilharzia.

Water tanks installed

Ironically, about 15km away in the same district, in the neighbouring Kanyang’wa village and Nyilima centre of Rarieda, 30,000-litre capacity water tanks have been installed. 

These tanks were built through the constituency development fund. To the residents here, the water projects have brought smiles. 

Moreover, they get it free of charge and ready-to-drink, the water having been treated at Asembo Bay.

But across to Waringa and other nine villages, the situation is far from festive. On the contrary, it is a plea to their leaders and the Government to come to their aid and provide them with clean water.

This situation epitomises the plight of many Kenyans, who still lack access to clean water, even as Kenya joins the rest of the world in celebrating the World Water Day on Wednesday.

Going by the theme; Sanitation Matters, this year’s World Water Day is not any different from last year’s that had the theme; Coping with Water Scarcity.

Both come against a backdrop of slow and insufficient progress made in achieving the global sanitation target, in addition to acute water shortages in the country.

On more than one occasion, Kenyans have been forced to turn to other unsafe sources of water such as the Wang’arot pond.

Many are the hours that Kenyans spend walking several kilometres searching for water, often from oases, ditches or streams infected with pathogens. 

In villages and informal settlements that have poor access to clean drinking water, the health of the people is ever in danger.

The irony in Kisumu and other surrounding centres is that despite having Lake Victoria, a fresh water lake, at their disposal, residents spend more on water than their counterparts who are far away.

In the informal settlements, residents get their daily ratio from open pits since it is less costly.

Financial assistance

In 2004, the Government, through the Ministry of Water, established Water Services Trust Board (WSTB). This was to mobilise resources and provide financial assistance for investment in water and sanitation services, in under served and marginalised areas.

The ministry’s vision which reads-Assured Water Resources Availability and Accessibility by All, is yet to be realised, even as the clock ticks towards the deadline of achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of halving the proportion of people in the world access safe drinking.

A report by a consortium of NGOs, under the banner Lake Victoria Poverty Alleviation Consortium (LAVIPAC), reveals that Kisumu residents and surrounding areas spend Sh1,230 on water, Sh170 and Sh445 more than what Nairobi and Mombasa residents spend respectively on a monthly average.

In the report titled Citizen Report on Urban Water and Sanitation Services in Kisumu City, about 80 per cent of residents of this town still experience long queues to get water.

The report adds that residents spend an average of 110 minutes per day to get the commodity.

Story by WALTER MENYA
Publication Date: 3/19/2008

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