Living well

By Tamsin Maunder

“I used to collect water from a traditional spring. During the rainy season there was lots of water flowing, but in the dry season there was very little. You had to wait while others collected their water and then, because there was so little, we could only get one bucket each a day. We had no alternative. During these times we didn’t have enough water to wash with and so a lot of people had scabies. There was diarrhoea and vomiting too. We often heard of people dying from diarrhoea. It was very bad and that was why we wanted a well.”

These are the words of Essenati Obadi from Malica in the Niassa province of Mozambique. With the help from WaterAid’s partner ESTAMOS her community now has six wells that provide people with safe, clean water close to their homes.

“Now the new well is much better because it is protected and we can collect three or four buckets each a day,” she says. “We use it for washing, cooking and everything at home – to clean our clothes, plates and houses.”

However, life was very different before. The women in Malica used to have to collect their water from traditional springs and then, through contractors, the state built eight wells with handpumps in the village. Niassa province, where WaterAid works, is the poorest and remotest region of Mozambique.

Much of the area is inaccessible and as transportation is a problem, the availability of spares and the sustainability of projects are big issues that WaterAid and its partners have to face. They have found that handpumps are often unsustainable in this region, as spare parts for them simply aren’t available or affordable.

However, the initial contractors in Malica didn’t consult with the community and so handpumps were chosen on their behalf. The contractors also said that there wasn’t water in the village saying that when they started to dig down they hit rock. So instead they dug the wells in marshy areas on the outskirts of the village.

The softer ground in the marsh meant it was easier for the contractors to dig the wells and complete the job, therefore making more profit at the community’s expense.

Then the situation got worse – the contractors stole five of the eight handpumps to use in another project, leaving the community with open holes in the marshy ground. Some people simply lowered their buckets into these open wells where the handpumps should have been to collect their water. Others returned to their traditional sources. The water quality was poor, and people became sick.

This story from Malica shows how important WaterAid and ESTAMOS’ ethos of community involvement in projects is. When the community spoke to ESTAMOS they realised how different the situation could be.

Through discussions and workshops the community chose the type of project that would be most suitable and affordable for them. With training from ESTAMOS and the work of a reliable contractor the community built the new wells where they wanted them, closer to the village. As they were responsible for the wells they took great interest in the planning, building and management of the project.

“I was in the group that decided what our community needed for our water source,” says Essenati. “We chose to have a bucket and windlass because handpump spares are very hard to come by and it is hard to repair handpumps. It is easy to mend this kind of well.

The men in the village dug the well as our contribution to the scheme. We chose to put the well here (it is a few minutes walk away from the houses down a small hill) so that it won’t run dry in the dry season like the old source.”

Rather than digging in the marshy ground, the villages worked together and dug through the rocky ground to find water below. They knew that this was the best site available and so persevered to find water. “Here we will always have water,” says Essentati. “If it was further up the hill we would have to dig much deeper and it may still have run dry in the dry season. But the water here is good and we don’t get cholera.

I also look after the well. I have responsibility for it. Because of this I never sleep in the fields like other people. Instead, every day I open the well early and then go to work in the fields. Then I come home and later at night I lock the well up.”

Essenati’s daughter, Fatima Ohoje, summed up the feeling in Malica when she said: “There are no bugs in this water and so it is clean. Before in the dry season it was not good and we got ill. People used to get ill but now my children and I are healthier. When I drink the water from this well I am living well.”

Tamsin Maunder, WaterAid’s Publications Officer, interviewed Essenati and other community members from Malica in Mozambique.

Find out more about our work in Mozambique