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.