Over the last nine months, I have become painfully aware of water. In my life before Africa, I understood water in simple terms: It comes out of the tap when you turn the handle, you can buy it in nice little bottles, the faucet has an endless supply, and you shouldn't let it run while you brush your teeth. Turns out that my understanding of water was very limited.
When I turn the handle in my bathroom, more often than not nothing comes out. Sometimes we go many days at a time without any water whatsoever; in the past seven days we have had about 6 hours of water service at the hospital. I repeat AT THE HOSPITAL. We deliver babies here and perform surgery. It boggles the mind that there is no water in a place where patients come to be treated for TB, HIV, Measles, and a variety of other illnesses. But it is a reality, and its now my reality.
The Director of the health facility has been very active of late trying to solve this ongoing water crisis at the hospital. Numerous meetings and discussions have been held with key officials in our area regarding the struggle we are facing in the absence of water. As often happens when a crisis breaks out in Namibia, a committee was assembled to address the issue. A couple months ago, representatives from various water agencies came out to the hospital and took a long look at why water is not being supplied effectively. They discovered that one of the main reasons why water is not being supplied to the hospital stems from an engineering oddity. The intake area in the reservoir from which the hospital should be pulling its water supply is quite high, and as such the reservoir must be over 60% full in order for the hospital to receive any water.
Now here is where the first problem arises. As long as NamWater is suppling all of Opuwo town and surrounding settlements with water, the reservoir level will remain too low for the hospital to receive water. Upon making this discovery, the decision was made among some officials to stop providing water altogether to two local villages, so that the water level could be raised. The water returned at the hospital, but when the Director discovered that it was at the expense of countless people in our local community, she again took up the issue.
It turns out that things are even more complicated; it just so happens that the vast majority of water contracts in my area are held by the Town Council, an organization of traditional authorities from the surrounding territories. NamWater pumps the water up from the earth, and the Town Council buys the water and in turn supplies it to the town. It seems that the Town Council has some past due contracts which are outstanding, and currently they do not have the money to square their debt. Thus, NamWater has refused to continue to supply water until some agreement is reached. So, for the time being Opuwo has water only when the Town Council can pay.
Now, unfortunately for us, the hospital is one of major contracts held by the Town Council. So we are subject to the same "water outages" as the rest of the town while Nam Water and the Town Council sort out their problems. This political problem, coupled with the engineering problems at the reservoir, have left us both literally and figuratively high and dry.
We have now begun the process of getting a direct water supply, where the hospital would have a direct line from Nam Water complete with private meter and a pressure boosting pump, thereby eliminating the Town Council as the middleman. The process is long, but if it works out Opuwo Hospital may have water once again. Of course the Town Council is not pleased to be losing such a large contract, but all of these things will have to sort themselves out in time.
So to add to my previous water understanding: water is scarce. water is political.
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