DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: “We Either Take This, or Die of Thirst”

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

MWINGI, South-Central Kenya, Nov 4 2005 (IPS) - Wiping perspiration from their faces, the women direct donkeys heavily laden with jerry cans towards the sandy riverbed.

Two donkeys refuse to move, obliging Kamene Munyoki to drag them to the river, where about 50 women have lined up to fill cans. With their bare hands, the women dig into the sand until a faint stream of water is discovered. Although it is brown, and also salty, they scoop the water into a calabash, then pour it into the jerry cans.

“We walk 10 kilometres daily to get water here and 10 more kilometres back home. This is the nearest place where we can get water to drink,” says Munyoki, panting from the effort of lifting a 50-litre can.

“We either take this, or die of thirst.”

In this south-central Kenyan district of Mwingi – afflicted by three years of drought, and now famine – water has become the most precious of commodities.

Government has promised communities relief. But for the moment, residents such as Munyoki and Julius Muthusi Syengo find themselves in a desperate situation.

“We have gone for days and days without a sip of water. We have had to discourage visitors from mentioning the word water because when the small children hear it, they get hysterical and start crying for water,” he says.

“At that point, we do not know what to do…There is absolutely no water, not even a drop,” Syengo adds, digging in a dam that resembles nothing so much as a bowl of dust. Mwingi has a population of about 332,000.

Authorities say plans are underway for establishing boreholes – and performing long-overdue maintenance on existing pumps that broke down years ago.

“A budget of about 20 million dollars was approved this financial year for digging boreholes and (for) pumps in the arid and semi-arid lands, where Mwingi falls under,” Mwangi Gakunga, chief information officer in the Ministry of Water Resources, told IPS.

“This money will be used to repair some of the broken-down boreholes and pumps that have been reported in the area,” he added. “The projects will start soon; they have just been voted by parliament.”

In the interim, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), in partnership with ActionAid-Kenya, is helping communities in Mwingi build dams to help them store water for domestic use in the future.

Construction on one such dam began last month in Kyavyuka; the sructure will be completed before the end of the year, when it is hoped the rainy season will begin. The dam is expected to hold about 10,000 cubic metres of water, which will last the community several months according to Gabriel Wambua: ActionAid-Kenya project officer.

About 200 people from the community have teamed up to build the dam, under a “food for work” initiative spearheaded by the WFP. This scheme allows a family to receive maize, pulses and oil for every day that one of its members assists with the project. People are allowed to work on the initiative for a maximum of 12 days a month.

“The idea to develop the dams arose from communities’ needs to have water in their vicinity. So the idea of the ‘food for work’ initiative is to motivate them and have them be in charge of measures to counter drought,” says Wambua.

For those in Kyavyuka, the dam holds out hope not only of a regular supply of water, but also a clean one.

“We want to drink clean water. What we are used to is salty water, which we have been taking together with our livestock,” says Syengo.

Dams also promise relief on another front.

One of Kenya’s largest rivers, the Tana, passes through the area – and has been used as an emergency water source by those living near it. The Tana supplies households with water for irrigation, and for domestic use.

However, those drawing water from it risk being attacked by crocodiles.

“They are threatened with rampant crocodile attacks as they water their animals and vegetables, worsening the situation,” says Herman Maina, an officer in the government’s Arid Lands Natural Resource Management Project.

However, he was unable to give figures of how many people had been attacked.