Links: Africare Water
Children gather to celebrate the rehabilitation of an old borehole.
The next best thing is a protected water source in a nearby valley.
...and when everything else fails there is the
local mud-hole.
This is in Bugando, Buraru parish, Kyabigambire sub-district, Hoima District.
| When the colonials left in 1962 there was a pretty good network
of boreholes serving the villages in Uganda. Over the years the
pumps have broken down and have not been repaired. The locals have
had to go back to the old system of fetching water from the swamp,
often a mile away. Government policy is now to install protected water sources. These are sand filter boxes set up to filter water running down a stream bed. Sometimes they are shallow wells with sand filters set up alongside the swamp. In either case the water has to be carried a long distance. Creating protected water sources is running way behind the need, and swamp water is often the only choice. The government is not promoting rehabilitation of the boreholes. It is the children who do the water carrying, starting when they get done hiking home from school. By the time they have finished these chores and supper is done, the tropical night is falling, and with no electricity or light it is time for bed. Diarrhea kills many children in Uganda. In the rural west, diarrhea and respiratory ailments and malaria kill 20% of the children before their fifth birthday. |
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