Thirsty for basic services
26 March 2007
Mail & Guardian Online
On a typical weekday in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, a group of women sits chatting under the shade of a tree a few metres away from a long, winding queue of 20-litre plastic containers and buckets. At the head of the queue, a barefooted boy pulls a half-cut container with a rope from a handmade well and pours the water into one container after the other.
Mary Kawite, with a baby strapped on her back, seems indifferent to the discussions that are going on around her. The first of her four containers is number 10 in the queue. The housewife from Lusaka’s John Laing compound says getting water is an everyday hassle for the residents of this highly populated area.
“We have been drinking water from this well since time immemorial, because there is no tap water here. It is the only well where we can at least access clean water, hence the many people waiting in the queue,” she says. “The situation is better when it rains. We can then collect rainwater that falls from the rooftops, but when it doesn’t rain, this is our only facility for clean water.”
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