To understand just how desperate people in this isolated and parched area of southeastern Kenya have become for water, consider this:
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They must often walk 15 or more kilometers in scorching 35C heat to the Tana River each day to fill their plastic jerry cans, and the tea-colored water they bring back is so dirty that in some villages Samaritan’s Purse has surveyed, 42 per cent of the children are suffering from diarrhea and other intestinal problems.
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The river is not only polluted; it’s dangerous. Wading into the water to fill jerry cans invites crocodile attacks. A child died in an attack earlier this year.
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To avoid the long, dangerous walk to the Tana River, many Kenyans have begun digging down into dry creek beds in search of water. They’ve sometimes dug down at least 16 meters – only to have the sandy walls cave in and bury them alive. There have been several deaths this way.
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Some Kenyans have resorted to drinking from the muddy puddles that appear immediately after brief rainfalls. This water is so contaminated – thanks to animal and human fecal matter – that those who drink it are very likely to experience painful and potentially deadly diarrheal diseases.
Samaritan’s Purse Canada has responded to the region’s prolonged drought – the same drought plaguing neighboring Somalia – with several emergency relief initiatives.
We began in late August to hire tanker trucks to transport clean water to various Kenyan communities. Some villages already had storage facilities but most didn’t. And so we’ve also been installing silo-like storage tanks, plus horizontal storage bladders that resemble giant water beds. These facilities are managed by local volunteer committees that oversee the water deliveries and water rationing.
“We are very thankful that you have brought us water – and provided some place to keep it,” said Said Guyoo Godhana, assistant chief for a community of about 250 families that recently received a storage tank. “We wish there was something we could do to give back.”
Salim Osman, a member of the local water committee in a nearby village of about 300 families, says the trucked-in water is so clean compared to what he and other people in the community were drinking that incidents of diarrhea have dropped dramatically since last summer. “I also wonder if the crocodiles miss us – now that we don’t have to walk to the river anymore,” he says with a smile.
Osman is eager to be part of another initiative Samaritan’s Purse has planned for the region: community toilets. Surveys have shown that almost no one in the region has a latrine. And so everyone simply walks out into a field – just like their cows, sheep and goats – to defecate.
The result is contaminated surface water. When the seasonal rains come – and there have been a few recently – the water that accumulates in puddles and creek beds is what can spark cholera epidemics.
We’re just beginning to tackle water quality here,” says Tim Carter, Samaritan’s Purse’s area coordinator, and manager of our Water and Sanitation/Hygiene (or W.A.S.H.) program in the region.
He and his Samaritan’s Purse team, based in the small town of Hola, have plans to build enough community latrines in various communities that people won’t have to walk more than about 200 meters to use one. His team has also begun dispensing soap – a precious commodity in a chronically poor region – to local residents while preparing to emphasize (through skits and other participatory activities) the importance of regular hand-washing and other hygiene practices.
Samaritan’s Purse also wants to install fences around some of the large earthen reservoirs that have been dug to contain the rains when they occur. Without the fencing, the reservoirs or dug-outs become magnets for livestock that pollute the water.
Carter is also preparing to install hand pumps on some wells that locals have dug by hand. The hand pumps will enable local residents to avoid dipping potentially dirty buckets or jerry cans into the wells, which can contaminate the water for everyone.
The water shortage has made it difficult for people in the region – most of them subsistence farmers – to grow anything. The drought-driven famine that has hit Somalia has touched many Kenyans too.
Samaritan’s Purse has responded with a food distribution program – supplying corn, beans and cooking oil – to four very vulnerable people groups: children, the elderly, the disabled, and orphans aged 15 or younger. The monthly distributions are occurring in about 25 villages.
Some recent rains have helped to rejuvenate local crops. And so Deo Opany, Samaritan’s Purse’s local food distribution coordinator, believes the need for food distributions will lessen soon.
All of the work Samaritan’s Purse does around the world seeks to address people’s physical needs and also their spiritual needs. The work in rural Kenya is no different.
Since our arrival last August 2011, we have been building relationships with local church pastors – while supplying them with Bibles and hymn books to give to families in their congregations, and to anyone else for whom the materials can help them grow in their faith in Christ. Carter has also been speaking to local young people about the blessings of faith, and the dangers of drug use and similar pastimes.
“Bibles here in Kenya are very expensive – only a few people can afford them,” says Pastor Michael Obaglana, who leads a church of about 200 families. Although the Bibles cost only $6 or $7, he says local people have so little income that it would take families months or even years to gradually set aside enough Kenyan shillings to purchase one.
“The hymn books are also a big lift for our church,” Obaglana adds. “Together, the Bibles and hymn books help our people to grow in their Christian faith and to reach out to share it with other people.”