Water in Mai Gbitsi: A Priest's View

Posted by Sadie - Wednesday, January 13, 2010

In Mai Gbitsi, we met 2 priests and farmers. Hafton Tesfay has two sons. Desalegne Gebru has one daughter.

Desalegn says: “before this we fetched water from the river. We expect to get a little water in two hours.”

Their wives would collect 20 litres at a time, and would collect water twice a day. Sometimes they used donkeys, but often carried the water themselves. The men were keen to tell us about the improvements to their cattle, who are very important to the farmers.

“Now the cattle can drink ten at a time. Before, we had to spend more time to get our cattle to drink. The spring was little, so the cattle had to drink one at a time.”

About the school he said: “the children have been absent many times. They had to collect water for home and also for the school and the children were not willing to do that.”

We asked them how they felt about having the water point – if it made them happy or sad? Desalegn’s reply was “are you joking? Before we were drinking together with our cattle, so this is a great improvement. In addition, the community is happy because they know where the water is coming from. We are very aware of family planning, so we don’t need more children unless we can afford to look after and educate them.”