Killer wells open mouths wide for thirsty villagers… but for how long?

By Andrew Munyoki

Kitui,Kenya:Provision of safe and adequate water for human and livestock consumption has remained the greatest need for Kitui South residents. Many call it the most elusive commodity.  So many lives have been lost as locals search for water.

In an era where other counties are laying down mechanisms to pipe water into farms for irrigation of crops and fish farms, residents from this constituency still grapple with lack of a commodity so vital for the support of human and animal life. Thousands of livestock die every dry season due to lack of  water while others break limbs as they ascend or descend stiff rock catchments or deep wells.

Of the seven divisions making the geographically largest constituency of the country, none has piped water and for decades residents have relied on natural sources like rock catchments, which collect water every rainy season. But water collected into these sources is inadequate to run a community until another rainfall, so each dry season residents dig shallow wells in the numerous seasonal rivers found locally. Water from these sources is saline, but residents have no choice but to drink it, cook and wash with it as they wait for the next rainy season.

The exception

Only Mutomo town, the leading urban center in the constituency, benefits from some piped water from nearby Nzeeu River. The bore holes sunk at the riverbanks are, however, unable to supply a town becoming populous adequately.

Frequent breakdowns of pumping machines and vandalism of the pipeline have left town dwellers under the mercy of water vendors.

Mutomo DC Joel Cherop has a humorous way of addressing the scarcity, always “thanking all women from Kitui South for remaining clean even when it is evident there is not enough water for drinking, cooking and washing”. That is how the chief signs off after addressing public barazas.

Some residents feel their greatest need has been taken as a campaign agenda for decades, as much has been promised, but very little done. That, perhaps, explains why locals listed provision of water for drinking, livestock and agriculture as their greatest need that required immediate attention before the county government prepared its budgetary estimates this year. The resultant loss of lives as people look for water has left residents cursing. But after lamenting, they have always points.

Sad memories like the death by drowning in a rock catchment of a college student in 2008 and that of an expectant woman recently, who was not even a year into her marriage locally remain etched in the minds of many.

Reported deaths

Two boys fell and died inside a  well while drawing water for livestock in 2009. Many more deaths have been reported, but the epitome of such deaths came on Saturday when four close relatives, among them two brothers, died when they attempted to remove mud from a well (See separate story right).

Residents now want to be told for how long they are going to walk themselves to death traps in the name of looking for water.

“That (death of the four men) could not have happened had there been adequate water for all,” lamented Masila Kakuti, who lost his two brothers in the last Saturday’s incident. Paradoxically, the recent killer well is inside the Tsavo East National Park near the northern gate and residents have to go under a live electric fence installed around the park to reach their only source of water in dry season.

Kitui County deputy governor Peninah Malonza is now promising help. She says the governor’s office is ready to sink bore holes and other shallow wells to avert such disasters. But which assistance can they offer those who have lost kin? “These men have left behind young families that are unable to fend for themselves,” says area member of county assembly James Munuve.

For now, with every lost life, residents keep praying that it be the last. And this is a prayer they have said for so many a year.