Things We Take for Granted -- Part 2: Water

As I write this, Freetown is in the midst of a severe water shortage. It has me a little anxious (and more than a little dirty), and thinking about how much we take water for granted.

Walk into your bathroom or kitchen and turn on the tap. Out flows safe, clean water -- hot or cold -- for your drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, flushing, and general wetting pleasure.

This certain and bountiful supply is not available here in Salone. In much of the country, as in much of the continent of Africa, people (usually women and girls) spend long hours each day lugging buckets of water from wells or rivers, often over long distances. This water is not purified or treated, and is often contaminated, but nonetheless serves for drinking and cooking as well as bathing and cleaning. Waterborne diseases are common and sometimes fatal, contributing to a life expectancy of just 37 years, and one of the world’s highest child mortality rates: 296 boys and 269 girls out of every 1000 die before the age of 5.

Even in Freetown, and even under the best of circumstances, only a subset of the population has access to piped water inside their homes. Many use communal outdoor taps, like the one just up the path from my house, which means the sight of women and children carting sloshing buckets is nearly as common within the city as in the rural areas. But at least this water is treated and relatively safe to drink.

Normally, I have running water in my house (cold only) from the municipal water supply. Toilets flush, sink taps function. I shower by filling sawed-off 1.5-liter plastic bottles from a knee-level tap, which is actually much more pleasant than you might imagine – except on chilly mornings, when the cold water makes for a rude awakening. My house is shielded from periodic water outages by two water tanks, also filled from the municipal supply, which provide several days’ worth of water if the municipal supply runs dry. (In such cases our neighbors, particularly one very sweet 17-year-old girl and her young brothers, will occasionally turn up to get a few buckets of water from our tap.) Like most foreigners, I don’t drink the water, but I use it for everything else.

As I write this, however, Freetown is in the midst of a severe water shortage. The reservoir at the Guma Valley dam, in Freetown’s suburbs, has dropped to just 6 feet, its lowest level since it was built in 1967 and well below its 100 foot capacity. Blame is placed on deforestation and unusually low rainfall in recent months, but the water company’s failure to anticipate or take steps to mitigate the situation is also criticized. Another culprit is the swelling Freetown population; originally built to serve 300,000 people, the dam now provides water to more than 1 million.

As a result, water has been sharply rationed over the past week or so, leaving many people without enough for daily use. What does arrive is discolored and full of silt from the reservoir bottom. Some families have managed to dig wells in swampy areas, or are forced to collect water from the immensely polluted streams and rivers around town, but neither water source is safe for drinking. Others collect as much as possible when the taps do turn on, and then make do with what they have until the water comes back.

In my house, we still have a bit of water in our tanks, thanks to careful rationing in the past few days, but it won't last long. We bathe much less frequently and with much less water, and leave toilets un-flushed for as long as possible, but still we watch the level drop by a few inches every day. And we are far luckier than most Freetonians, not least because we can afford to buy bottled drinking water, and (if push comes to shove) pre-filled tanks at $50 apiece to use for other purposes. But still, I feel dirty and anxious – much more for my neighbors than for myself – and I worry that things will get much worse before they get better.

Concern grows by the day about the health consequences if the shortage continues. An unrelated but timely cholera outbreak in another major Sierra Leonean city, Kenema, feels like a dark warning of things to come. UN agencies and NGOs review plans for emergency measures. Prices for bottled water, already out of reach for the majority of poorer residents, climb as nervous residents stockpile drinking water. With a slightly guilty conscience, I buy my extra cases of water and make plans to head upcountry next week (where the rains have been normal and there is no shortage) if things don’t improve.

Meanwhile, everyone hopes for rain – the one way out of this crisis. A Muslim cleric called for a day of prayer today to ask God to send rain, and I’m sure many Christian services will do the same this weekend. I rather hope it works.