‘My three kids share one bucket for bathing; the other between me and my husband’

A  family of five from Katiqari, Malolo, in Nadi struggles every day to meet its basic needs of water.

Sisifa Kuini and her three children aged 11, eight, and six with her husband survive on a 200-litre drum of water for days and even a whole week.

“It becomes very difficult for us because we don’t have any proper water source so we survive and minimise wastage of water,” Mrs Kuini said.

“We try and minimise wastage by sharing one bucket of water amongst my three kids for bathing and the other between me and my husband while we use the drum water for drinking, cooking and washing.”

The borehole which the family depended on has run dry during the prolonged dry spell.

“We were sharing a borehole from my husband’s boss’s home, but it runs dry every now and then during this drought season,” she said.

As they were speaking of their ordeal yesterday a DISMAC truck came to their rescue and refilled their drum and two other buckets with fresh clean water.

Chand thankful for water

Meanwhile Narendra Chand, 65, also of Katiqari Road, Mulomulo, Nadi, says he is grateful for the timely water assistance being provide by DISMAC.

“I wrote to the assistant district officer Nadi in June this year and after one month they only sent one drum per household and the water truck hardly came but now that has changed,” Mr Chand said. “There’s a big 10,000-litre Rota tank now and we have enough water for the four families here in this area, and I am happy now that the water truck is coming to our area once a week.”

He said members of the community were grateful, especially during this period when the dry spell had taken its toll in the Western Division.

“We are requesting Government to make borehole for us because it’s not just us that need water; our neighbours like the iTaukei community also need water because it’s a basic necessity and our right .”

Water truck driver Nitesh Kumar, 31, said,“Today I will be taking water to 14 households and this tank holds about 5000 litres of water.

Edited by Manasa Kalouniviti

Feedback: farisha.ahmed@fijisun.com.fj

Feedback: saloteq@fijisun.com.fj