Change for good

Before, Agnes used to have to collect her water from the dirty river bed.

Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

Life in Choobana village, Zambia has changed incredibly, writes Tamsin Maunder.

Where previously the women had to dig holes in the sandy riverbed to collect the only water available they can now draw clean, safe water from either of the two village wells.

Water used to be scarce and the river, which was a long walk away, was shared with animals. Now the wells are close to home and the community is working hard rehabilitating one to ensure it still provides water despite the droughts and falling water table that afflict Zambia.

With more time, women are able to farm and children can go to school.

Before the village dogs would follow people into the bush when they went to the toilet in the open, returning to lick people's plates and food.

Now the community has six trained latrine builders and nearly all of the 53 households have latrines of their technology choice meaning that excrement is safely disposed of.

These vary from ventilated improved latrines made of bricks to moveable ecological sanitation latrines with grass structures. Although the designs vary, all include washing facilities.

Dishes are now neatly stacked on dish racks away from animals. The village is spotless, with swept paths and rubbish pits. Before, deaths were common and disease was a fact of life.

But now the village is used as a model to show other communities what they can achieve too.
Here, two villagers, Agnes and Augustine, describe the differences that WaterAid has helped the community to make.

Agnes Mwilinga

Now, the community in Choobana can collect clean safe water from the village wells.

Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

"This is where we used to collect all of our water from and also where we now collect the water for our gardens. We make scoopholes in the sand for the water to filter through, but the water from here wasn't good.

Cows and other animals came here too; they drank at the same source and walked through it. The water from here tastes salty and very strange and we think it is because animals urinate in the water and because people also go to the toilet in the bush near here.

When we drank this water it was common to see people sick with diarrhoea and that was probably because the cows and dogs came here too. People had cholera in 1999 and many people in this area died then, two people from our village died in that outbreak alone.

But it wasn't only the diseases that were a problem - it used to take me at least two hours to collect water from here. We used to walk all the way here and then, depending on the time of year, we had to dig down into the sand to get water.

Sometimes the pits would be as tall as I am but then animals would soon push the sides in as they climbed down trying to get water and this meant we had to re-dig them every day.

The other big difference is that we could never bathe our children then. We had to economise with our water. Our 20 litres had to last between our family for all our drinking, cooking and cleaning. Sometimes even a month would go by before we could wash our children.

This was especially bad in September and October at the end of the dry season when water was very scarce. As water was so hard to come by we didn't wash our clothes much either then.

The women here used to suffer a lot; they used to walk a long way just to collect this dirty water. Now though things are different, the children bathe every day before they go to school and when we finish rehabilitating the well I hope that we always have a lot of clean water."

Augustine Cheelaya, village chairman

During village meetings the community discuss issues including water, sanitation and hygiene.

Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

"We used to have a lot of diarrhoeal diseases before. We used to go to the toilet anywhere we could and so our surroundings were very dirty. Now we have latrines and even the smallest children can use them.

The houses are clean now, with dish racks to dry the plates and rubbish pits to keep the dirt away from us.

As chairman I go around and encourage people to construct latrines so that everyone here has them. I also want to see the sustainability of the programme continue and so encourage people to stay involved and to keep keen.

People are very excited now as we see huge changes have happened here, especially when we compare ourselves to other villages. The differences are very big - if someone came here they could go to a latrine, but in others they would have to go in the bush.

In our meetings, we discuss many issues depending on the problems. We sometimes discuss water and how to work on the wells, and we also talk about hygiene and keeping the waterpoints clean. We also encourage the community to keep their households and latrines clean.

We have a committee here that looks after the latrines, another that looks after hygiene and a third for water. In future we will continue with our own development. I hope that we can plan an orchard for fruit trees because of the vitamins that they bring."

WaterAid's work in Zambia

Tamsin Maunder is WaterAid's Senior Publications Officer.