Now that the dry season has begun and many wells have nearly dried up, the villagers in Sonsoro are increasingly reliant on the pump. The pump provides cleaner water than the well, but at a price: 5 cents for a six-gallon jug or bowl, whereas the well is free.
There are about 10 faucet pumps in Sonsoro. These pumps receive water from the water tower, which is filled with water using a motorized pump. The water tower empties out very frequently, often within a day of being filled, and the pumps cannot give water again until the water tower has been refilled. For whatever reason, the water tower often remains empty, which is one of the major reasons that water is difficult to acquire during the dry season. When the wells have dried out and the faucet pumps have no water, all of the village depends on our two foot pumps and one hand pump, which work at all times (except when broken!).
Recently, one of my good friends became a pump operator, and he told me more about how the system works. Each faucet pump has a meter that tracks the number of cubic meters of water that have been dispensed. For each cubic meter, the pump operator collects $2, of which he keeps 20%. The remaining 80% is remitted to an agent who collects it on behalf of the village government. From the records, it looked like the pump operator might dispense 4-8 cubic meters of water per day.
My friend got his job when the last pump operator was fired for stealing money. While the theft was easy to catch from the pump records, that only applies to the faucet pumps. The foot pumps and hand pump have no meter, so the pump operator simply reports how much money he claimed to take in and gives 80% of the money to the town hall agent. Even my pump operator friend did not know how the village government uses the money.
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| My friend at his pump |
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| A woman and child at the well |
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| A Peace Corps Volunteer working a foot pump in another village |
It's hard to imagine not having ready access to water. Has it ever happened that there was just no water at all in the village? Then what? We've just had a situation in W. Virginia where the water for 300,000 people was polluted with chemicals, but they were able to get bottled water. No such thing in Sonsora.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
I am not sure what the worst water crisis in Sonsoro has been. When I originally arrived in Sonsoro, the water pump system had been broken for months, but most people got by with rain water (it was the rainy season) and well water. Problems arise when the rain stops, the wells dry out, and the pump system happens to be broken (or they simply haven't bothered to fill the water tower). Some wells are deeper than others, so maybe there are a few that take a long time to dry out. There certainly have been periods where I have gone days without being able to get water at the pump. This dry season, I decided to take extra precautions and I bought a 30-gallon container to store reserve water.
ReplyDeleteSmart idea to have some water in reserve.
ReplyDeleteWhen I paid my water bill the other day, I marveled at how cheap water is. Once a week garbage collection cost me more than the 2000 gallons of water I used. In fact, if I have my facts straight, 4 cu meters of water equals roughly 1000 gallons. My 2000 gallons cost $8.90 (they do add a basic service charge of $3.90 and state sales tax of $.77, but still, it's cheap and convenient).