Many people have asked me about the water situation in my
area, seeing as I live in a desert and am an agriculture volunteer. How does that
work? My region, known as the Fouta, is indeed a desert; however, we are
bordered by the Senegal River that branches out into several tributaries. Thus,
while it only rains three months out of the year, those villages that are near
a river have year round water access. Those villages that are not near a water
sources have other means for accessing water.
Household Water
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| An old well that no one uses anymore |
In terms of water that is used by a household (drinking, batching,
watching, cooking, etc), villages either have “robinets” (outside spigots),
wells, or both. Women typically use ropes either with or without pulleys to
lift water out of the well, which in my area are between 40 and 60 meters deep.
Villages near rivers will tend to wash clothes and bathe in the river but
usually will have a well or a robinet for drinking and cooking. Robinets in
smaller villages and towns in the Fuuta are sometimes connected to “forages” or
large towers that hold water that is pumped there from a nearby lake. Robinets
can be powered by grid electricity or by solar panels.
In wealthier villages each family compound will have their
own well or robinet. In less fortunate villages, several families will share a
robinet or a well as is the case in my village. This practice poses several
problems when there are cuts to robinet water. There are sometimes small
arguments over who gets to fill up first and how much water each family is
taking.
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| A forage that stores and pumps water to the robinet |
My village, for
example, has a solar powered forage and robinet system. This means that on top
of normal cuts to the water, there is no water when there are cloudy days or –
as what happened a few days a go—a major sandstorm that blocks out the sun all
day. The months of December to February
are usually overcast. During this time period, there can be cuts to the
robinets for days at a time. When there is no water, my sisters take turns
walking down the road to the nearest well and carry the water back on their
heads.
Under sunny conditions, we usually have water between the
hours of 11am to 12pm and 4pm to 5pm. Our family is lucky enough to have a
robinet in our yard, so we tend to get first dibs over the other families. Once
the water has been put into buckets and various other containers (plastic
yellow vegetable oil containers are the most preferred), some is put into a
clay pot which holds water for drinking. They rest of the containers are placed
around the yard and in each building in the compound until they are needed.
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| A communal robinet with the yellow oil containers people use to store water |
Agriculture
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| River irrigated agriculture on the far side of the bank |
Villages who are situated along rivers strategically line up
their fields along the banks of the river. Farmers then fill up buckets and
watering cans from the river to water their fields. Sometimes, farmers have
motor pumps that pump water from the river onto their friends when they are
able to afford it or are given one – think farming collectives, political gifts
from candidates, or NGO projects.
Villages who are not on a river, have two options: irrigated
farming or rain fed farming. For rain fed farming, farmers are restricted to
planting during the rainy season in July to early September. Typically, farmers
who only plant in the rainy season farm field crops such as corn, beans,
millet, sorghum, and rice. A farmer who only farms during the rainy season is
at great risk of losing his or her crops if the rains are bad.
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| Rain-fed agriculture (a combination of beans and corn) |
Other farmers are able to irrigate their crops by either
relying on well or robinet water and hand watering or by using a canal-flood
system. Farmers that water by hand are generally restricted in the size of
their farming space unless they are able to hire people to water their fields
for them. Additionally, most women’s gardens are hand watered by wells or
robinets.
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| Taredji Canal |
Recently, there have been several large-scale irrigation
projects in my region that have been funded by the government of Senegal, other
international governments, and some NGOs. These groups hire foreign companies
(especially from Portugal for some reason) to build large trenches and basins
from rivers to nearby villages who do not have access to the river thus
creating a large network of canals. Once villages have a canal, they place all
of the farmland off of the canal, and then open gates to flood all of the
fields at once. This means that all the farmers of the village have to plant
things that require the same watering schedule. Canals enable famers in
northern Senegal to grow year-round vegetables as well as rice, a staple in the
Senegalese diet, without hand watering. My village operates on a canal
irrigation system and is able to produce year-round vegetables and grains
including onions, tomatoes, okra, and rice.
Overall, water is a scare resource in the Fouta. Those days
with no water can be tough, but its more of an inconvenience in my town.
Villagers have to walk far to go to the fields that are by the canal and cannot
farm near their homes. My sisters and I have to walk to the well to get water
on days that the robinet is cut. We are fortunate enough to have several
sources of water and irrigated fields that other villages do not have.
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| Taredji irrigated fields on watering day |
