adminVincent Gono, Features Editor
IN scenes reminiscent of village funeral gatherings where groups of women with an assortment waist cloths and doeks dutifully form a beeline with buckets to fetch water from village wells for cooking and washing as well as for other uses, Bulawayo women are doing the same every morning as tapes in the city have run dry.
The predicament and pressure to find alternative sources of domestic water that is affecting mostly women was prompted by the introduction of a 72-hour water-shedding schedule from the initial 48 hours that the residents have been complaining about.
Although the city has had perennial water challenges with no practical long term plan to effectively deal with the challenge, the current water shedding regime is among the worst in recent years and women have called on the Government to be serious about finding a lasting solution to Bulawayo’s water challenges.
The recent schedule is, however, not being adhered to as in most cases suburbs go for more than 72 hours without water as part of drastic measures being taken to conserve the little available water in its remaining supply dams after some were decommissioned.
“The City of Bulawayo would like to advise residents that this (non-adherence to timetable) was necessitated by the need to increase the levels for Magwegwe Reservoir which supplies most of the Western areas and Tuli Reservoir, supplying most of the eastern areas, which had gone below their critical levels,” Bulawayo City Council senior public relations officer Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said.
As a result, she said, it affected the water pressure in suburbs that had been reconnected with water supplies especially those which were in high lying areas. She added that the current raging heat wave had contributed significantly in depleting the dam levels forcing the city council to revise the water shedding schedule to 72 hours.
The critical shortage of water in the city has left it sitting on a health time bomb apart from burdening the women and girl children who are made to shoulder the woes and make sure there is water for everyone in the house. In some suburbs women and children get water to use in the toilets from sewer streams ignorant of the dangers lurking on their health.
Women in the city are now living like their countryside counterparts as they are now going to look for water far from the comfort of their houses while bathing has become a luxury that some can simply forgo.
Even those that are not so industrious and are used to getting water from within the house can no longer afford to sit and be lazy but are forced by pressing circumstances at home to join others at boreholes, wells and city council bowsers queues.
They are almost more like rural women now only that those in the countryside are used and just go straight to the well that does not change and that seldom dries up.
The way water has become scarce in Bulawayo and the way people especially women are now forced to walk long distances that are not town like to get it confirms that indeed water is life.
“We are no longer different from our rural counterparts. From hewers of wood when electricity was still a problem now its water. Seems we will not get any respite anytime soon with the rains seemingly not wanting to fall. We are forced to walk far and wide because without water nothing can be done in the house and it is every mother’s duty to make sure the house is clean and the family is fed.
“We can’t complain although it is difficult, we have to shoulder it. It’s part of our nature and our socialisation. Even those that are working have to ensure that the house is clean and that the family is fed. Our biggest worry is that with the stench that is coming out of the houses as a result of toilets that are not flushed we may soon find ourselves in a serious health problem.
“With the shortage of water, some mothers are leaving their small kids to relieve themselves outside on the roads when it gets dark and that is unhealthy. The city council should drill boreholes in suburbs where there are none and rehabilitate those that are there that are dysfunctional,” said Ms Nokuthula Chuma.
The city’s water supply dams have run dry and if the rains continue being forgetful of the season that we are in, then a more critical water situation may right be staring the city’s populace with a gloomy face.
Women and girls are the ones most affected by the water crisis as they are the ones bearing the burden of the city’s deepening water woes.
“The water issue has really become a thorn in the flesh of most women. We have children who go to school and the biggest issue is the toilet. Children are never mindful of the fact that there is no water they would want to use the toilet and you know how it is with toilets that are right in the houses.
“Before we do anything from cleaning we have to make sure there is water in the house and socially such roles are relegated to the women folk and the girl child. We wake up very early to go to the plots that are close to Old Pumula where we get the water from wells as the city council bowsers do not come daily.
“And because of the distance one is forced to carry just one bucket that does not last a day, so the water challenges are something really burdening on the women,” said a resident of Old Pumula Ms Nosizi Dube.
She added that before the challenge became as critical as it was now they used to get water from some schools’ boreholes but now the school authorities were no longer permitting them as the number was growing each and every day.
According to the city’s deputy director of engineering services Engineer Mente Ndlovu, the hot weather had increased the rate of evaporation from the already dwindling city’s water bodies that never received much owing to the poor rainfall experienced in the previous season leading to the decommissioning of Upper Ncema Dam in July and the recent decommissioning of Umzingwane.
He said the long term plans that council was working on was the Epping Forest and the refurbishment of the existing boreholes.
He said the project would augment the city’s supply with an extra 10 mega litres of water per day and was estimated to cost $4million. The project is expected to be complete by June next year.
Eng Ndlovu said there were 25 operational boreholes in Nyamadlovu and Zinwa is planning to drill 20 more before the end of the year.
Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura) chairperson Mr Winos Dube lashed out at the city council and Zinwa accusing them of being poor planners, rigid and insensitive.
“The city council and Zinwa are not serious. Why do they have to wait until the eleventh hour to start refurbishing boreholes and talking about the long term strategies. We have a poor planning local authority and an insensitive water authority (Zinwa).
“Why does it look like there are no permanent solutions to the water challenges that Bulawayo has been facing. There is nothing new with regards to water challenges in Bulawayo and we have been at each other’s throats because of poor planning on the part of our city fathers.
“Right now our wives are made to walk long distances in search of water and children are relieving themselves outside because residents do not have the water for use in the toilets and one wonders why the authorities start talking about solutions when there is a crisis of such magnitude. They relax when there is little water in the dams and only start talking when the situation is tight,” he said.
Online Reporter