Residents of Elwany Village in Uganda enjoy a bountiful supply of water. They fetch from a shallow well, located in an area endowed with high water yields. The distance from their homes to the well is convenient as most live within one kilometre of the well. On the Friday we visited this well, in Agali Sub-County in Lira district, the scene was bustling.
Published on: 17/11/2011
Residents of Elwany Village in Uganda enjoy a bountiful supply of water. They fetch from a shallow well, located in an area endowed with high water yields. The distance from their homes to the well is convenient as most live within one kilometre of the well.
On the Friday we visited this well, in Agali Sub-County in Lira district, the scene was bustling. People of all shapes and ages were fetching water. Some were children with small jerry cans. Others were elderly men taking the little water that their frail hands could carry. Others were women – some of them pregnant and others with babies strapped on their backs. Yet, in spite of the bustle the queues were bearable and people didn’t take too long fetching water.
All seems perfect until one sees the state of the hand pump. This well, constructed way back in 1989, has a broken handle. Whereas the handle would ordinarily be about one metre long, the one at Elwany shallow well is a stub only a few inches long. The area around the well is bushy and the soak pit is full and covered with overgrown grass, as no wooden barriers have been constructed to protect the pump from poor use. The apron is cracked, exposing the concrete below. Yet the users go about their water-fetching as if all those pitfalls do not matter.
The caretaker of the well, Charles Bongonyinge, sounds resigned as he explains. “We used to collect user fees and we used to maintain our source. But there was a time when the treasurer of the Water User Committee took off with all our money and since then no one wants to pay fees for source maintenance”. The treasurer had left the village and none of the residents could trace his whereabouts.
Bongonyinge agrees that indeed it is important to raise money for operation and maintenance but it is nearly impossible to regain user trust in the WUC. In its lifetime, the Elwany shallow well has broken twice. The first time it was repaired using the fees collected by the users – but that was before the treasurer did his disappearing act. Then it broke down again and the area Member of Parliament repaired it, but swore he would not help on the next occasion. In its current shape the well needs a touch up, but residents just don’t know what they are going to do.
So they have resigned to using the half-handle shallow well, even though they suffer pain from doing so. A user describes how pumping with a half handle quickly tires you out and in some cases causes blisters. The bushy surroundings, the cracked apron and the untended soak pit all present different hygiene risks, which breaks the safe water chain.
Asked what they will do if the pump breaks down again, they (without shame!) point to a nearby pond, saying that will be their emergency source.
Elwany shallow well may be more than 20 years old and not in the best of shape. However, it helps you to get a handle on the complexities of community-based management. The stubby handle makes it harder to pump, but the pump itself speaks volumes!
Lydia Mirembe, Triple-S Uganda
