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Eight years later, a task confronts Uchira that is far more difficult than building a successful water scheme: it must sustain a successful water scheme. Uchira’s initial success is now being undermined by a problem plaguing much of the developing world—poor water quality. Despite the pipeline, health has not improved as much as the villagers and GTZ expected. While all healthcare providers agree that the pipeline has enhanced village health to some degree, many of the same problems still threaten villagers today.
“Amoebic dysentery,” Dr. Lyimo shouted, “Amoebic dysentery in a village with piped water!” The register at the free clinic shows water-born diseases have climbed back to almost pre-pipe highs. How could a village with clear water coming out of modern taps with modern meters still have so many water-born diseases? The answer is very simple, but you can’t see it with your eyes. Lab analysis of the water found high levels of fecal coliform bacteria, the international indicator of general contamination.
While Uchira might provide a model for effective water-sector development, it has failed in at least one respect: its lack of attention to quality. Efforts to improve access to drinking water hope to break the cycle of poverty and disease in places like Uchira, but to be successful, those efforts must focus on water quantity and water quality together. Accomplishing this two-pronged goal in Uchira and other villages will require treating the water, at least during the wettest months when microbes thrive. Fittingly, upon receiving the report that generated this article, GTZ pledged to fund a chlorination tank that, if managed correctly, will eliminate almost all bacteria in the pipeline.
Ensuring clean water in the pipes seems certain to improve village health. But it is only the first step. A test of the water in Zaina’s drinking bucket shows that.
Sanitation and Education
A chicken wanders by Zaina’s stool. She bends down, using both hands to toss the chicken into the dusty yard. She sits up straight again, and with the same gesture clasps her tea cup, rubbing the rim with her thumb and forefinger until she can see that all the dust is it should be. “You can’t live very well if you don’t know. Uneducated people don’t know the advantages of water…I want to know more,” she says.
Ignorance cripples many villagers’ attempts at hygiene. A boy at Papliki Elementary School comes back from the reeking pit latrines and washes his hands, soapless, at the one school tap. His hands brush the metal. His classmates, most of whom wouldn’t bother to wash their hands after the latrine, wait in line to fill their drinking cups.
The largest gaps in the Uchira villagers’ knowledge relate to the unseen, to the microscopic elements that bring disease. The Swahili language doesn’t have a word for “germ”; Tanzanians usually use the word for insect (wadudu) with a prefix meaning “small” (vijidudu). Even when people know that “vijidudu are things of dirtiness” that cause illness, they often cite mosquitoes as an example, since mosquitoes are technically very small bugs which bring disease. To compensate, the English terms “bacteria,” “amoeba,” and “virus” have been adopted into the Swahili language (now bakteria/ amweba /virusi). Many Uchira villagers are familiar with the words, but beyond the vocabulary they don’t know much.
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