Villagers use dirty water for daily needs

Villagers use dirty water for daily needs

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Cirebon, West Java

Rosidin, 40, trudges down a bumpy track on his old-fashioned
bicycle for over four kilometers to Singakerta village in
Krangkeng subdistrict, Indramayu regency, twice each day to get
water from a dirty fish pond.

On each trip he takes around 20 liters of the murky green
water for bathing and washing from the small pond, as do scores
of other local residents.

"I've had to do this for the last three months to get water. I
do it twice a day -- in the morning and evening. Though the water
is dirty, my family needs it to survive during this devastating
drought," said Rosidin, who is a construction worker when he can
find time between his bicycle trips to the fish pond.

Many of his neighbors are in the same boat, but those who can
afford it, hire a pedicab to take them to the pond.

"Though I have to pay the pedicab driver -- around Rp 4,000
(US$0.5), it's no problem because for one trip I can get between
six and eight 20-liter containers full of water," said another
villager Sujaki, 32.

"We are forced to use the water because it's too hard to get
water in our village," he added.

For drinking, Rosidin, Sujaki and their neighbors rely on a
private well for clean water. The well, located in the
neighboring village of Dukuhjati, is around six kilometers north
of their village.

It is not free, however, during the drought. The villagers are
required to pay the owner of the well Rp 250 for every 20 liters
of water. They can also have clean water sent to their house if
they want to pay Rp 1,000 per liter.

Eviyanti, a 25-year old housewife, said she had to get water
from the well in the early morning hours each day. "If not, the
line will be very long during the daytime."

The water crisis has also hit Cidempet village in Arahan
subdistrict, Indramayu, where locals have dug 15 wells, each
three meters deep, at the lowest point of the dried up irrigation
canal.

Unfortunately, the wells only produce a tiny amount of water.
Villagers have to wait for at least two hours to fill up a 20-
liter container.

Even when they do manage to fill up their containers, the
water is brown and muddy, and it takes several more hours to
purify the water to a point that it is usable for anything.

Hadi, 38, a resident in Cidempet, said the move to dig the
wells was actually banned by the subdistrict administration as
they said it would damage the irrigation canal.

"But we had to do it to survive, and the administration wasn't
going to help us in any other way to get water," he added.

His neighbor, Rokim, 35, said some local villagers rely on the
service of traditional vendors to supply them with clean water.
Unfortunately for the villagers, they charge exorbitant prices at
this time of high demand.

"The vendors now sell a 20-liter jerrycan of water for Rp
1,000, but before the dry season, the price was only Rp 200 per
jerrycan," he added.

Hadi and Rokim said they and other local villagers had
received no assistance whatsoever from government, unless one
could consider their advice not to dig wells as being a form of
assistance. "I hope they (officials) know about our suffering,"
Hadi said.

In the neighboring regency of Indramayu, the water shortages
are most acute in Bungko Lor village in Kapetakan subdistrict,
where hundreds of people are forced to make use of a dirty,
little duck pond.

Kastari, a local 44-year-old resident, said the duck pond,
located on the compound of duck husbandry firm PT ADD FARM-
Cirebon, is constantly crowded with villagers who bathe and wash
their clothes there.

"For the last two months, the basin has been used by local
people for bathing and washing despite the fact that the water is
only fit for ducks," he added.

Kapetakan is the worst affected area in Cirebon. All of the
land, a total of 2,739-hectares, has dried up and the harvest has
been a complete disaster.

In Pasindan village near downtown Cirebon, people are also
facing a similar fate. Clean water is sold there for between Rp
1,250 and Rp 1,500 per 20-liter container.

Supplies from local tap water company PT PDAM have been
disrupted for the past two months. "To meet the demand for clean
water, residents now have to buy it from traditional vendors,"
said Gunadi from North Cirebon.

The central government began distributing free rice and
sending water trucks on Monday to some of the affected areas in
18 regencies in East, Central and West Java.

However, many regencies have been bypassed as their local
administrations were said to be still in the process of putting
together the data required before assistance can be delivered.