Vol. 3 No. 1 Specials

“We have pipe water. Clean and safe. You can see the bottom. Look! Drink it…Zisti, she doesn’t want to drink it. She’s afraid! Look. I’ll drink it.” The banana-beer brewing babu (grandfather) cackles at his strange mzungu (white) visitor as he drains the cup. With startling blue eyes and deep brown skin, the babu continues to laugh as the mzungu protests in broken Swahili that this water has high levels of bacteria, that it must be boiled, and that, really, she’s not all that thirsty.

The village of Uchira lies across the crumbled foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The water pipeline that runs by the house continues to the village center, which is crossed by a black highway and dotted with red coca-cola promotional chairs. The pipeline webs out to the rest of the village; 34 yellow and brown square kilometers of mud homes stand surrounded by patches of sunflower fields. Small children ruffle the tall stems, too young to understand that their water is back under investigation even after eight years of extraordinary effort and progress.

Eight years ago, little water reached Uchira. Because the banana farmers had siphoned off the Uchira River into irrigation furrows, the river carried water to Uchira only during the wettest months. Most months, village women spent seven hours each day fetching water from the spring in the Miwaleni lowlands. The Miwaleni Spring hosts crocodiles and Colobos monkeys who defecate into the water while watching women carry away plastic 20 liter buckets on their heads.

The Uchira villagers were sick. Then as now, Malaria mosquitoes reigned at the free clinic. Between influxes of malaria patients, Dr. Jamila and Nurse Mary treated those with water-born illnesses like diarrheal disease, ascaris, and hookworms. The water also brought regular outbreaks of bloody amoebic dysentery and even cholera. But despite the execrable quality of their water, the villagers needed more of it.

In 1997, faced with an untenable situation, the village’s religious leaders found a sponsor in GTZ, the German government’s on-site aid organ. With GTZ’s money, advice, and the Uchiran’s labor, a pipeline outfitted with 43 public taps was finished by 2000. The water now encased 11 km from spring to tap in PVC and concrete. “We succeeded because we worked together to make the pipes,” “we got sponsors,” “we’re more progressive,” explained Ardei Tarimo, Anzamena Mlama, and Ramadani Omari with pride. The pipeline is the only successful rural water project of the 30 built since 1960. The water improved the standard of living in Uchira, gave women more time for other work, and even nourished a few flower gardens.