Shampoo, rinse, repeat? Not too likely in Sanur, Majda Waleed’s
village.
In this arid West Bank village southwest of Jenin, Majda raises five daughters and a son in a sprawling house shared by three related families. Majda does not believe recent government statistics that compare Palestinian and Israeli water usage – showing clearly that Israelis use three times as much water per capita as the Palestinians do. She believes that Israelis in some areas consume far more .
She's also astounded to find out that the amount of water going down the drain during a ten-minute shower in the West is equivalent to all the water a typical Palestinan uses up in an entire day of drinking, watering plants, washing clothes, cleaning the house, bathing, and flushing the toilet.
"We know water is precious," Majda says, "because we have so little."
Even when there is no drought, as there is at present, chronic shortages of water result from its unequal distribution in the West Bank. This is due to the limited financial resources of the local Palestinian authorities, who lack full control of the land, plus the unequal portioning of shared water resources by the Israelis Authorities.
Thousands of households in the West Bank receives piped water only in winter, when its less needed, and more than 200,000 Palestinians are not connected to water system. Until recently, Majda was one of them.
A couple of months ago, the European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) and CARE International brought piped running water to her house as part of an emergency water supply and sanitation project that is extending the water network to 250 households in her district.
"We live on steep, high ground and we used to rely on water that was brought in by a tanker and kept in an old cistern, which was risky for all the little children in our three families. We were so scared a baby could fall in and drown. Someone misplaced the padlock so we had to wire it shut after we used it. One tanker load would last us about 20 days, if we were sparing. I used to get up before 5 am and work all day long, hauling water and putting it into buckets and bottles. Washing dishes in this way is never-ending, and so is laundry.
I'm tough, not spoiled at all, but now I can save time while cooking and the older girls can shower by themselves. Now there's time to help the kids with their studies, after school. And I can devote more time to the two children who have special needs. Also for the first time I can remember, I have been able to sit down in the evening and read two books cover to cover! "
Tips on how to avoid wasting water come from the CARE project managers, who hand out pamphlets and hold awareness meetings in the neighborhood. By displacing the water in the toilet's reserve tank with a plastic bottle, for instance, each flush will use less. But these women are canny and already know how to maximise the water which they used to haul up from the cistern.
According to a recent study, ground water supplies in the West Bank are becoming tainted from agricultural chemicals, inadequate sewage treatment, and over-pumping of wells. Untreated sewage frequently gets dumped in valleys , polluting the ground water and soil. Supply is also an issue. Even Palestinian towns and villages that do have a water network experience erratic cuts while in remote areas, water supply may be disconnected for days or weeks.
Israeli authorities exercise control over all water resources in the West Bank and any improvements to water and sanitation infrastructure require permits, which are rarely granted. In some cases communities rely on tanker water for which they pay up to 100 shekels --or 20 Euros-- a month - an exorbitant amount of money for a family with no wage earner. Many families try to make do with 30 litres per day – well below the World Health Organization recommended 100 litres per day for personal needs. Fewer people than ever can now afford basic water services in the West Bank. Much of the household water that does arrive is untreated. Closures and curfews imposed by the Israeli authorities frequently prevent Palestinian access to chlorinated safe water sources.
Yet Israel draws five million more cubic meters of water from the West Bank than it supplies to the Palestinian Authority. Israel allocates to Palestinians only 20 percent of the water from the shared Mountain Aquifer, and prevents the Palestinian Water Authority from developing additional water sources. The European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) is tackling the Palestinian water emergency household by household, and through the efforts of CARE International, the hardest-hit households are able to turn on the tap.
Freed from hauling water in Sanur when the European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) paid Care International to connect her home to a piped supply, Majda Waleed (in green headscarf , back row right) can help tend the smaller children ?while the others are away at school (Fawziya, front right in a borrowed school uniform, has special needs ?and does not attend classes.)
Majda displays the two books she has had time to read since her home in Sanur, near Jenin, got running water through ECHO and Care International
Majda makes a bucket of water clean all the floors in her house. ?Her house was connected to the village water system as
part of a project funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) and implemented by CARE International. (All Photos by David Silverman/Getty Images for CARE/ECHO)
This spigot, newly connected to pipes, has brought running water to Majda Waleed's house and improved her life. It's part of a project funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) and implemented by CARE International. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images for CARE/ECHO)
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