'Our children are dying from a lack of clean water'

10:24am Monday 24th March 2008

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A lack of clean water and sanitation means that many people in Burkina Faso face a daily struggle to survive. Lauren Pyrah travels with the charity WaterAid to Africa, to find out what life is like in the rural areas of world's second poorest country

IMAGINE you are pregnant. Imagine your only way of obtaining water is to haul it 20ft from below the ground and carry it on your head. Now imagine that very same water has already killed three of your children - but you have nothing else to drink.

This is the day-to-day reality for pregnant 35-year-old Kadidiatou and her three children, who, like millions of others in Burkina Faso, play Russian roulette with their lives every single day by drinking potentially lethal water out of necessity.

"I had six children," she says, speaking through an interpreter. "But three of them died. When he was sick, I took the first son to the hospital and he was suffering from a bad stomach. They started treatment, but he died a few days later.

My second son also had a bad stomach.

Before this pregnancy, I also had a baby who died very quickly.

"I think the children are dying from lack of clean water because every time we go to the hospital, the health agent will tell us to cover the water we drink."

But, heartbreaking as her story is, Kadidiatou is one of the lucky ones. In rural areas, just one in ten people benefit from proper sanitation, while just over half have access to safe water. Now Kadidiatou's village, Bigida, is getting assistance from WaterAid, and one of their partner organisations Dakupa.

The village's main problem is that the open well, which is a clean water source, becomes contaminated by human and animal faeces, as well as dust, dirt and rubbish blown on the wind. Dakupa will help the village to cover the well before testing and purifying the water to ensure it is safe to drink.

They are also in the process of educating householders on the importance of covered latrines, hand-washing and basic hygiene. This is done by a man and a woman from within the community, as peer education has a better success rate and is a more sustainable way of getting the message across. Dakupa also train a local mason to make cement covers for the latrines and encourage villagers to build walls around them for privacy and hygiene.

Wandaogo Moussa, who we find digging one of the village's first latrines, tells us: "We hope that when we get latrines we will get rid of a lot of diseases like stomach problems and other waterborne diseases. It is like a dream and when this dream will become a reality, it will change our lives."

In a nearby village of Sigwouss, 49- year-old Bance Moumini proudly shows us his latrine. He built it three years ago, after one of his four wives was bitten by a snake while defecating in the bushes.

This was the final straw for Bance, who lost his eldest son 11 years ago through a snake bite after he was forced to use the bushes during the night because of a stomach upset.

"My son, my first son, died," he says.

"He was in grammar school. He was 17 years old."

Now WaterAid have helped the rest of the village to build proper latrines and started an education programme for villagers, from which Bance has clearly benefited.

Although probably one of the richer people in the village, by Western standards Bance would be considered practically destitute. When he opens the door of his first wife's kitchen, which is simply a mud and tin shack at the edge of the yard, I see something scuttle into the darkness, but although extremely bare and basic, her house is the most lavish of the four.

Despite the obvious poverty and difficult circumstances, Bance is one of the warmest, most charming people I have ever met. He tells me, with a twinkle, that his wives never get chance to become sick of him as spends three days with each one in turn. Then he introduces me to a selection of his 32 children.

He also, very sweetly, presents me with a huge bag of peanuts, telling me that African tradition dictates that all visitors to the house get a present. It seems extraordinary that a person with so little is prepared to give away freely the small amount he has.

Unfortunate as these people are, they are by no means the worst off in the area. In the remote village of Bomtenga, which is three and a half hours from the nearest town, there is no clean water or proper sanitation.

Many of the children have painfully bloated stomachs and thick mucus around their eyes and noses - classic signs of malnutrition and disease. We are told villagers, particularly children, are often sick.

On closer examination, the source of contamination becomes obvious. Cattle are kept next to an open well, resulting in animal excrement polluting the village's main water source. It is little wonder the villagers become ill.

They are well aware, too, that they are risking their lives every time they have a drink of water, but they have neither the education nor the resources to change this.

Abibou, a 30-year-old mother-of-four, tells us: "We know we need clean water, especially for the children. We know that when the children are drinking dirty water, they will get some diseases, but we have no choice."

Bomtenga is one of the villages that WaterAid is considering for a water and sanitation project, but with no funding from Burkina Faso's government, they are heavily reliant on the generosity of people overseas, people who can turn on a tap and, without really thinking, waste gallons of safe, clean water every day.

Unlike Kadidiatou unlike Bance unlike Abibou. And unlike the 5,000 children who die each day as a result of drinking dirty water.