Dateline ACT

Kenya 0906

Water as precious as gold in Kenya

By Stephen H. Padre, ACT International

Turkana District, Kenya, November 7, 2006–It’s a strange convergence of pursuits in the same place – one group of people looking to the ground and another group looking toward the sky, both expecting sustenance from rare commodities that each source could bring forth.

The prospect of finding gold in the soil attracted people to this spot in the middle of a vast, desolate plain in northwestern Kenya in the early 1990s. As nomadic pastoralists, their constant search for water and pasture land to sustain their herds of livestock had become more difficult as drought conditions developed and have lingered since then.

So a group of families settled down and formed the village of Naduat, where they have tried to live off the land in a different way. Where the land failed them – in not providing enough stored rain water to enable them to sustain their traditional wandering livelihood – villagers have looked to the precious metal the land may yield instead as a means of support.

The villagers have not totally given up their original store of wealth and have kept their livestock, which is still an important source of food. However, they – and the people themselves – still need water to survive. The Lutheran World Federation – (LWF) Kenya, a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, has assisted them in meeting some of their needs for this vital resource.

LWF-ACT has constructed an 18,000-liter concrete water tank for the village and has arranged for water to be trucked in twice a week. While the villagers pin their hopes on the ground beneath their feet, LWF-ACT has put in place this short-term solution, hoping a more sustainable and natural end to the problem of the drought will come from the sky in the form of regular rains again in the coming weeks.

In late October, normally the middle of the year’s short rainy season, the skies were becoming dark and threatening periodically, and brief showers could be seen falling over pockets of the plain. Even a bone-dry riverbed became a rushing torrent of water one day from sudden rains that fell north of here in Uganda. But residents in the area were saying that much more rain was needed to fill wells and reservoirs and meet the needs of the people and animals in the region.

The LWF-ACT water tank in Naduat sat empty late on a recent day. The supply of water, delivered a few days before, had been quickly used by villagers, and they were awaiting the next delivery the following day. The tank serves 2,000 people in the immediate vicinity and some of the other 11,000 people in the surrounding area.

When the water tank was constructed, LWF-ACT worked with villagers to organize a committee that oversees use of the water tank. The committee comprises 42 elected members, 18 of whom are women. The committee collects a fee of 5 Kenyan shillings (US$0.07) for each 20-liter container that villagers take. The funds are used for purchasing more water and for maintenance of the tank. The tank was built with support from the government and funds from the villagers themselves.

One villager, Nicholas Ewoi, explaining the challenges the failure of rains have created, said, “The problem of water is too much because there is no economic activity to [enable us to] buy water and the water table is low.” He thanked LWF-ACT for providing a solution in the above-ground water tank.

“We have suffered for almost 14 years” without a reliable source of water, he continued. Villagers expressed their desire for a borehole, which could supply water in the long-term for the area.

In other parts of the district where the water table is higher, LWF-ACT has repaired boreholes to sustain communities during the drought.

In Nawotom, two young men who had brought some of their community’s goats to the borehole spun the hand-operated well together on a recent morning. Although it took a lot of effort to produce a small stream of water, it was enough to fill a small trough that the goats lined up to drink from. After all had drunk, their owners led them on across a dry, sandy riverbed in search of a grazing spot.

The LWF-ACT efforts have made it easier for villagers and pastoralists who are passing through the area to access water. But as the drought drags on and water becomes more and more scarce, it is being treated as something as precious as the gold the villagers in Naduat seek.

Stephen H. Padre is the information officer for Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.