Quenching the thirst: Seattle brings the most precious liquid abroad

EDITOR'S NOTE: Today is World Water Day. To mark the critical importance of water, the P-I is featuring two articles by Sarah Stuteville, a Seattle native and lead reporter for The Common Language Project, a Seattle-based media nonprofit. For more of Stuteville's reporting from Ethiopia, visit clpmag.org. Funding for these articles was provided by The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- It was early morning and a dozen Westerners, mostly Seattleites, were getting ready to leave the capital for a three-day visit to water-development projects in Oromia, one of this country's largest rural states.

As they set out -- a caravan of five Land Rovers moving through the dense traffic -- many of them still were quietly coming to terms with the parting words of Adane Kassa, executive director of Water Action, the Ethiopian nongovernmental organization that coordinates the projects they'd be visiting.

"As you know, the coming third world war is anticipated to be fought over water," Kassa said.

To those from water-rich regions such as the Pacific Northwest, Kassa's words may have seemed hard to understand. But the issue is critical to the estimated 7 million people worldwide who die annually from waterborne diseases or for the parents of children younger than 5 -- one of whom dies every 14 seconds from lack of water and sanitation. Like Kassa, many who study this fundamental resource predict water could become the next precious liquid to destabilize the international community.

Three months earlier, water scarcity was still an abstraction for the donors and supporters of Water 1st International, the Seattle-based organization that raises money for grass-roots water and sanitation projects in the developing world, as they crammed into a small downtown Seattle office for their Ethiopia orientation.

There in the waning October sunlight, as the group sipped bottled water and enjoyed a midriff view of Seattle's skyscrapers through the broad window, the world of "san plats" (sanitary platform squat toilets) and dysentery seemed far away. For all of the Seattle supporters, this was a first trip to sub-Saharan Africa.

Though they would be accompanied by Water 1st Executive Director Marla Smith-Nilson and Director of Foundation Relations Kirk Anderson -- both seasoned travelers in Ethiopia -- there was a little anxiety mixed with the excitement of the journey.

All of them were involved in funding Water 1st, either individually or through businesses and foundations, but their reasons for braving that anxiety and traveling to Ethiopia were diverse.

Nancy Carroll, a real estate agent from Ballard, adopted two Ethiopian children last year. Mark Nilson, a cousin to Smith-Nilson by marriage and senior pastor at Seattle First Covenant Church on Capitol Hill, wanted to bring a global perspective to his ministry. Jon Hughes has been interested in Ethiopia ever since his daughters began school at Madrona where his family had become friends with many Ethiopian immigrants.

The water tower of Africa

Three months, 48 hours of air travel and 81 miles by Land Rover away from the real estate office and Madrona neighborhood Little League practice is the town of Bishikiltu.

Bishikiltu, on a bleached yellow plain dotted with haystacks and cylindrical mud huts, is home to 5,000 people desperate for clean, accessible water.

Women and children tend to bear the greatest burden in water-scarce communities. Women may walk hours every day only to bring home water that could poison their families. A lack of clean water during childbirth has killed many young women in Bishikiltu in recent years. The children of Bishikiltu are able to attend school only sporadically because of daily water collections and continuous illness. It is estimated that as many as 10 children a year die in this village from preventable waterborne diseases.

"The problem of water shortage in Bishikiltu is very big," said Zerihun Bekele, an employee of the local government's water office.

Interestingly, Ethiopia, known by many Westerners as a place of limited resources because of the famines and droughts of the 1980s, was once referred to as "the water tower of Africa." The many springs, rivers and tributaries that crisscross the country, as well as the aquifers thought to lie beneath the surface of this ancient nation, could be enough to provide every Ethiopian with Water Action's recommended allotment of 20 liters a day.

Despite this abundance, a lack of water and sanitation infrastructure means that 70 percent to 80 percent of Ethiopia's 73 million people have no reasonable access to this basic resource.

The Ethiopian government, with one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa and eager to propel the country into the 21st century, has promised to make water a top priority.

But that is in the future. In the meantime, organizations such as Water Action, buoyed by U.S. funds raised through Water 1st and other international donors, stretch themselves to try to fill the enormous need.

As Smith-Nilson said: "At Water 1st we believe that water is a basic human right. We just want to be involved in making things right here for people."

Tasting success

Things have been made right about 19 miles away from Bishikiltu in Ilama Muja, a village of 3,500 people that is celebrating the inauguration of a program funded and organized by Water 1st and Ethiopian partner Water Action.

The celebration took place on a plain overlooking a valley of patchwork farms and surrounded by a ridge of folding brown hills.

At the center of this bucolic grandeur is the stone reservoir that has changed the life of Ilama Muja. In front of the reservoir were rows of homemade benches facing a line of rickety school seats, resting in the high, billowing grass.

Suddenly, groups of villagers appeared over the horizon. Some were old men in worn suit coats and ball caps, traditional staffs or government-issue rifles (for village security) in their hands. Others were dancing youths in traditional faux baboon-hair headdresses, their singing rising on the wind. They had all come to greet and thank the people who had helped bring the water.

"For long years we were drinking dirty water and now we have clean water and toilets. We are very happy," said village elder Buloyerge as the ceremony began. His clouded eyes surveyed the strange clutch of faranjis (white foreigners) who leaned toward his every word. "We are very, very happy," he said, nodding his grizzled head a few times.

The ceremony didn't last long: Ilama Muja residents were eager to taste clean and safe running water in their village for the first time.

The ceremony quickly turned into a procession as the villagers poured into the stubbly fields -- singing, clapping and dancing toward the central water tap. A faded orange ribbon tied across the fence was cut and immediately people began to flood the community spigots. A flurry of cupped hands rushed to wash faces, douse children and fill red and yellow plastic jerrycans.

One elderly woman in a threadbare white shawl knelt at the spigots and pressed her forehead to the wet concrete platform in thanks.

The Seattleites, a smattering of sunburned faces in the crowd, were stunned.

"It's water, just water," said Josh Epperson, a Water 1st supporter who works for a business consulting firm in Seattle. "I've never sung or danced for water, you know?"

"This is the best," said Water 1st Executive Director Marla Smith-Nilson, smiling and squinting up from the traditional striped headdress she received as a gift from the people of Ilama Muja. "This is why we do it."

But exactly what they do, everyone at Water 1st is quick to point out, is only a small part of the projects. Water 1st contributed about $180,000, the largest portion of funds, to this project. But both Water 1st and Water Action insist that they create water systems that involve the community at every point in the process, careful to emphasize that this is an inclusive model that extends beyond that of so many other relief projects, especially in Africa, where aid groups often are criticized for providing quick solutions of money or supplies and then leaving.

In Ilama Muja, for example, the community donated about $33,000 in cash and in-kind labor to the project. They also formed a local water administration staffed by villagers, which oversees the entire life of the system.

Villagers regularly buy booklets of tickets (each ticket costs about 2 cents) to exchange for 25 liters apiece at the water points, open for a few hours each morning and evening, according to the convenience of the village. The money collected through this process is managed by the village water administration and used for maintenance and upkeep of the system.

Water 1st and Water Action both believe that this sense of involvement and ownership in the communities they work in is an integral part of what they do, and that it may even encourage further development. Ilama Muja used some of the excess funds they collected for the water project to build a gleaming new whitewashed school, which the village's children, free of long-distance water fetching duties and debilitating waterborne diseases, now can attend regularly.

More water on the horizon

Though Water Action says it would like to find the funding for consistent post-project support, all of the systems it built are still working.

Anderson, like many at Water 1st, said he views these projects as building a foundation for further community-motivated development.

"Our projects are technologically simple but sociologically complex," he said.

Though complex, this work can be surprisingly inexpensive. Ilama Muja's project ranked as a level three difficulty on a scale of four, largely because of the drilling and pumping required. Despite this, the cost averaged about $50 to $60 per person -- or roughly the cost of a monthly cable bill -- to provide clean water to every resident of Ilama Muja, even accounting for population growth, for the next 20 years.

Water Action's other projects in Ethiopia are often cheaper and on average cost closer to $8 to $10 -- or the cost of a movie ticket in the U.S. -- per person for 20 years.

Before leaving the region, Bishikiltu residents received some good news. Water 1st, Water Action and their supporters announced that they have raised the funds to begin a large-scale water project, intended to benefit 5,000 people in their village.

"We were here one year ago and at that time we had to tell you that we were unsuccessful in raising funds for your project," said Smith-Nilson, her hands clasped in front of her small frame.

"We left last year fortified by our visit with you and your words, and we went home and told our many thousands of friends in the United States the story of Bishikiltu."

She continued as two translators, both Amharic and Oromifa, echoed her words to the already applauding crowd.

"And we now are able to say that we have enough funding for your water project."

WORLD WATER DAY

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To learn more about Water 1st International: water1st.org.

For an audio slideshow from Bishikiltu and Ilama Muja: http://clpmag.org/content/contentpages/2008/articles/Stuteville_Water1st.php.