Gunungkidul villagers face water shortage

By Bambang M.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Whenever the dry season starts, villagers in Wonosari, Gunungkidul regency, would prefer a pail of water to almost anything else.

The rich, however, have no problems since they can simply buy water. But the poor do not have this luxury. Most of the time, they have to walk for kilometers or dig holes in dry ponds just for one or two pails of dirty water.

Normally, the dry season in the regency begins in May and lasts for about six months. But in some villages situated in hilly and barren land made up mainly of karst stone, the dry season lasts longer. Sometimes, villagers do not strike water even after digging 10-meter deep wells.

One of the villages in Wonosari, Plalar, which is located some 85 kilometers southeast of Yogyakarta, is now beginning to experience a water shortage.

"The rain stopped for four months and our pond dried up," said Suliyanto, a local resident, while trying to extract some water from a dry pond.

Although the pond has dried up, people are still trying to get water from it by digging deeper and deeper holes. If they are lucky, they can find water two or three meters below the dry surface of the pond. As a result, one can see numerous holes scattered about the surface of the pond.

In some of the holes, local children are seen taking baths, playing about and having fun, seemingly oblivious to the water shortage.

"During dry seasons, most adults usually bathe only once a day," said Tukiman, another villager.

Another villager, Suliyanto, proved lucky. After spending hours digging a hole in a dried pond, he came away with 50 liters of brownish water.

"I'll use it to wash my family's clothes," he said, adding the his family had enough water for drinking and cooking.

The man said he was forced to dig in the dried pond for water since he did not have enough money to buy clean water.

"It's too expensive for me to pay Rp 70,000 for 5,000 liters of water," Suliyanto said.

Whenever he can no longer get any water from a particular pond, he walks a few more kilometers to find another pond.

Plalar village is one of the villages in Wonosari where water pipes have not been laid by drinking water company PDAM.

"We registered to get the water pipes installed last year but there is no sign it will happen anytime soon," said Plalar resident Tukino.

In order to meet their water needs during the dry season, the villagers dig holes near their homes to catch whatever rain may fall. Most of them also have little tanks to catch rainwater, with each tank being able to hold between 3,000 and 5,000 liters of rainwater.

However, the real problem comes when the dry season lasts longer than normal, because this supply of rainwater will run out.

According to a villager, Jakino, only farmers who have enough livestock can afford to buy clean water. Usually, he said, the farmers use their livestock as their savings for the dry seasons. Whenever the dry season comes, they will sell their "savings" one by one to buy clean water.

"Livestock is very valuable for use whenever the dry season comes," said Jakino, who has four cows and four goats ready to sell during this year's dry season.

During dry seasons, most farmers will not use cows to cultivate their land, hiring people to do the work instead.

"We just can't let our cows pull plow in the dry season. They are our savings. Besides, it's also very difficult to find grass and water to feed them," said a farmer in Gandu village, some 20 kilometers south of Wonosari.