I am Zewuditu, 40 years old and married. I had eight children, but two children have passed away. The picture shows three of my children and me. The girl at the right side of me is my fourth daughter, she is nine years old and the two boys are twins, you see them on the left, they are under five years. I was very disturbed when I gave birth to the twins because I am poor with large family. It was difficult for me to take care of my older children, but God give me twins! Imagine how I felt bad, I didn t have anything to give them except my breast. Anyways, God is great, and they are growing. Now I take an injectable family planning method every three months to prevent unintended pregnancy. This picture also shows how old our house is. It needs maintenance; but the cost of living is too high. I worry about our economic problem; the size of our family is not proportional with our income so it is difficult to fulfill their needs. When there is a shortage of food in the house we give priority for the children, and we skip our meal, oh my God, we are always in a problem. My first born son was in grade eight. Do you know why he dropped out from school? Just to help us with our farming. My husband became tired and has bad headaches. I am always annoyed for our inability to support this large family but my husband advises me and says children are more than money. I am not comfortable on my elder son s case; he cares for us rather than we caring for him. 1
Having all these economical problems, if we have health problem how can we manage it? You know this is also the reason for me to give much emphasis to use treated water. I am concerned about drinking water for the family and I try to keep their personal hygiene. We don t have anything to be proud of except our hope to do better jobs. Since our house is near to the main road, in the coming five years, I want to improve my life by opening a shop and selling injera and Teff. This picture shows a shop that is well known in our town. I want to build similar shop on the front of my compound. If electric light and pipe water is available, I can sell cool water after refrigeration. I hope my children can grow up and become successful adults. I will be happy if God our creator makes us equal with other family who live better. 2
This picture shows how we fetch water from the pond which is called Borche. The pond is opened in the morning and evening - this picture was taken at 6pm as my friend passes the main gate of the pond. The pond is in this compound. There is a man who looks after the pond. The pond has a fence and a key on the entrance, and is protected from animals in order to protect it from contamination and misuse. I am happy to come here because it is found closer to our village - it takes 1 hour round trip from home. This is not as tiresome as fetching from the river, since the river is more distant than the pond. 3
Look, these are my friends also fetching water inside the pond. I meet my friends here. When we go to the pond we discuss different issues, and we advise each other. This is the only chance we have to relax and talk with our friends. As you see there are green trees and much water but after some months things will be change, the water dries and you can t see any green plant here. 4
The other thing is you have to fetch water only with pot. Those 25 liters plastic jars are not allowed because it is perceived that it contaminates our water source. Pots are clean, you always keep pots carefully and clean at home because if you are not take care of, it is going to break easily. To get the water, we sit at the tip of the water or on the stone near by the tip of water, because it helps us not to contaminate the water. We use plastic cap to take the water from the pond to the pot. We hang the pot with rope to prevent the pot falling in to the water. And it makes easier to carry the pot after filling the water. The picture depicts another way to carry fetched water from the river. You can see how hot the temperature is in this area and can imagine how difficult it is to walk a long distance like 4-5 hours in a day to get water from the river when the pond is dried. Most of the times, it is the men s responsibility to fetch water from the river because of the distance. If females go out to fetch water from river, who is going to perform the household chores? 5
A donkey carries two to four 25-liter plastic jars. I don t have a donkey so we are obliged to fetch the water and share half of it for the owner of the donkey. Even if we do not pay money, indirectly we are paying the donkey owner with water. This is the water that I fetched this morning and it is ready to be treated. Here our food is being cooked. My first born daughter is always helping me with cooking food until I get back from the pond, but the pity is that today, my daughter already went to school before I reached at home, without having food. 6
As you can see the water looks cloudy. If you see it in the bottle you can easily detect the real color of the water before treatment. This is why we use PUR to treat our drinking water. 7
After the water reached home, the first step to start water treatment is to transfer the water from the pot/plastic into the open container or Bucket. I use PUR. I have got PUR from health extension workers but sometimes they face stock out and we are obliged to use boiling technique to treat our drinking water. I open the PUR Sachet to drop the powder in the bucket and mix it with the turbid water. As you see, the bucket is half full. The bucket contains 20 liters, and I use 1 sachet of PUR for 10 litters. 8
I stir up the PUR and water continuously, when I see this picture I remember how my hands became tired. And I asked myself, How long do I do the same, is it forever, and I can t get the answer. Any way, thanks to God this is also the help of our government and Health extension workers, who provided us PUR. But, I wish to have tap water like the towns. 9
After I stir up continuously for five minutes, I have to wait another five minutes till the PUR makes the dirt collecting at the bottom of the pail. We can see the dirt collected under the water and the pure water is on top. We drink clean water to prevent water borne infection. If someone drinks untreated water, he/she will become sick of water borne infection and diarrhea follows. 10
To get pure water I have to filter the water with a piece of cloth just any cloth you can find at home as long as it is clean. I wash the cloth with soap and water, when I think it is dirty. While I filter I take care not to mix the dirt part gathered at the bottom of the bucket, because it is very dirty and poisonous. Water before treatment Water after treatment These pictures show the effect of PUR; one is the water before I treated and the other shows the real difference after the treatment. PUR makes the real difference the water was dirt before the treatment but now it becomes clean. 11
I store the treated water in this pot. The advantage of storing water in the pot in hot climate areas like our environment is for cooling purpose. Pots make the water cold. After I treat and filter the water, I store in this pot. Usually we wait for about 30 minutes to drink it. Here the green plastic is to close the mouth of the pot to prevent contamination by dust or flies. 12
I get rid of the sachet of used PUR and the remaining dirt poisonous residuals. This area is far from reach of my children. They couldn t get it. The residual is poisonous; if children get it, it may cause some harm on their health. 13
We wash our hands after the process of the treatment. We use treated water for all purpose like preparing Injera, for drinking, and cooking. If I have sufficient treated water, I wash with treated water and soap. Otherwise I use untreated one for washing. After I wake up early in the morning, before starting my duties, I wash my hands. Even if we don t do anything, it is customary to wash hands in the morning. We wash our hands before and after meal. Hand washing is good to clean our hands from dirty particles. Sometimes when I lose soap, I wash with warm water. 14
This is a picture of the feet of your data collector. I wanted to remind you how our environment is full of dust. You see, when I walk with you to the pond and river where we get water, you become full of dust with only one round trip, but we do every day. Don t forget that our water and our living style are like this and do what you can do for us. 15