The Eastern Province of Sri Lanka suffers from a lack of water. You only need to drive through this area to notice the dry expanse of land that stretches for miles before your eyes. Hence it is not unusual that many of the new housing schemes built with foreign aid have been constructed with some form of harvesting scheme, even though they can only be operational for 3-6 months of the year due to the scarcity of rainfall.
While Sri Lanka has 2 main rainfall periods, the South West and North East monsoons, this part of the country only benefits from the NE Monsoon. The average annual rainfall varies between 1200-1900 mm and while it is not unlike Sydney in terms of total rainfall, this rainfall is not uniformly spread throughout the year. The rain is concentrated to the time of the NE monsoon, which is between December and March.
We have stopped at Sengamuwa, a Muslim settlement of Tsunami affected families who once lived on the coast. They are all mostly fisher folk. 
My guide introduces me as a reporter from Australia (I am reporting for Travel Bug after all) and the family is more than happy to share their story. They only speak one language here, Tamil, of which I only know the obligatory 2 words, so Naufer translates for me.
The house costs approximately AUD $6,000 to build and we are told the tank holds a capacity of 2000 gallons. When the water runs out these families walk or bike anywhere from 1-4 KM each day to fetch water from communal wells.
This tank comes with a water filter. A simple bucket with a plastic filter that takes out the organics. The water is then used directly for drinking with no other form of filtration or treatment. The water used for washing up is fetched everyday from lakes or wells in the area.
I ask to take a photo with the women folk of the house who are initially very shy and very modestly dressed (thankfully I was not in shorts today). They eventually relent and we share a few laughs before we shoot a few pictures and say goodbye. Life in the dry zone is certainly a challenge. 
Our next stop is Pottuvil, where the Dutch have built a village of dome houses for a community of Tamil speaking people, also affected by the Tsunami and forced to relocate.
The home owner is very welcoming and again invites us in to have a look. This is the first time I have seen such construction in Sri Lanka. The owners explain that each house cost approximately AUD $7,000 and the high roofs enable these houses to be self cooling. Simple partitions inside separate the 2 bedrooms from the kitchen and a larger area at the front serves as both the dining and lounge. There is a room reserved for worship and the dunny is always outside. The lack of water in the area means an indoor dunny is out of the question! 
There are 54 brightly coloured houses in this scheme and they are all for the one community of Tamil speaking people. From what we can glean the schemes do not seem to mix communities and I think the communities prefer it that way.
Our next stop is a place called Komari where another Tamil community has been resettled after the Tsunami. The women here are not shy at all and are more than happy to pose with me for a few photos and to invite us in for tea. My mum remarks I look like the Pied Piper with all of the village folk following me around! (I do stand out a just a little in these remote Sri Lankan villages :) )
inside their house and peer down the well. The well is empty and stays that way for about 4 months of the year, even though it is about 30 feet deep.
Not everyone however can afford their own private well and there are a number of tube wells and round wells around the village for common use. A well costs about AUD $100 to drill, a lot of money in these parts. A tube well can service about 10 houses but they often run dry. The well has to be drilled to a depth of about 40’ underground and even then there are not always guarantees!
So we say goodbye to these cheerful village folk who are happy to share their story and the hardships they face each day to access the most basic of human rights. People in Sydney grumble about water restrictions but for these people getting their daily quota of water means a lot of hard work on a daily basis. I don’t think we truly appreciate how lucky we are to have access to clean water on tap!
Thousands have lived without love, but none without water.” W. H. Auden
No comments:
Post a Comment