One mother’s plea for water

By Aruna Lolani 25 April 2017, 12:00AM

Water is the driving force of all nature and yet it’s one of the basics people in Samoa are struggling to get. 

That is the opinion of Tasileta Limu from Fusi Safata when the Village Voice caught up with her as she was doing her laundry by the river next to her house. 

Aged 55, Tasileta is sad about the water conditions in the village.

When asked about why she was doing her laundry in the river, she said it’s because the tap water is not on. 

“We are like any other villages; we survive on the water from the village’s water well,” she says to the Village Voice.

“We’ve always had that, for water supply but the problem is when the well is not half full, we hardly get water. 

“So we have to wait until it becomes full to get water.

“But the water from the well doesn’t go far to families that are staying in the inner lands.

“There’s always water there but it doesn’t run strong enough to supply water for our taps or pipelines. 

“So what the people always do is get bamboo sticks and put them in the well to access water. 

“And when it rains, the water gets dirty and mind you, people of our village drink from this water tank, they also get water from here for food as well.

“Access to water is not great as we can’t guarantee there will always be water available for us. 

“Our water is clean because the Ministry of Health has done checkups, you know whether the water is safe enough for consumption. 

“They came before and assessed the conditions of the water and went on with their filtration process.

“But it’s in the case of heavy rainfalls that we worry about because it causes the water in the well to become really dirty. It’s not healthy for us. 

“Usually it’s good news for us if the well is filled up with water because that’s two weeks of water supply for our people. 

“But most of the time, wherever the water stops, that’s where people go to get water from because the water flow is not that strong and does not reach most of the taps here in our village. 

By Aruna Lolani 25 April 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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