Thousands of families cannot afford $2 for potable water

Martha Francisca Alvarado is a 43-year-old woman who looks 60. She lives near a ravine of dirty water where she bathes and washes laundry for her children and grandchildren. She does not have potable water services in her home and she does not have the money necessary to buy the water she needs for cooking and drinking.

She is part of the more than 2 million Hondurans who do not have potable water in their homes and who have to work to purchase water from the water trucks that circle the hills of the capital city. More than one million people live in Tegucigalpa, but many of them do not have access to potable water in their homes.

After Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras in 1998, the authorities could not ignore the weaknesses of the water distribution and sewer systems. Yet Martha Francisca is still living without access to clean water.

Martha Francisca lives in Sector 2 of the neighborhood called 17 of September, a little beyond the impressive Cathedral of the Virgin of Suyapa. The area served as the municipal trash incinerator until the end of the 1960s.

Her house is near the edge of a small ravine that serves at this time of winter as the preferred playground for her three small sons and three young grandsons, despite high levels of contamination in the water. There are no services in her home for potable water, waste elimination or electricity.

In the midst of her extreme poverty, Martha Francisca feels privileged in the winters because she does not have to walk 5 kilometers to the hill to look for water for her personal use and laundry.

"In the winter, this little ravine is a blessing from God. During the summer there is not enough water to get to us here and a person must carry water in the day and again at night. There is only a little at the foot of that little hill and we all line up and take turns," she says. They have to walk so far for water that should only be used for washing because it is not clean enough to drink.

"Now in the winter, all these little ravines run with water and we don't lack water. Now we don't suffer for water," she repeats.

Water: A necessary luxury

Martha Francisca is an example of the thousands of men and women in Honduras who work from sun up to sun down for the "luxury" of buying potable water, as little as twice a week.

This woman, who makes and sells tortillas, needs about four 5-gallon containers of water every 3 days to cover her basic needs, not counting bathing, waste elimination and laundry. "The water we buy is strictly for drinking and cooking," she says.

Each jug of water is worth 15 cents, which represents a weekly investment of at least $1.20.

She earns an average daily income of $1.20, which has to cover her family's most basic needs for food and water. Nonetheless, she adds, there are days when sales are bad and "as we send out the tortillas, so they return."

"Look," she says, "I work to buy water and a little food."

"When we have too little money we only buy water for the children. Then we don't wash. We save the clothes for when we have water," she explains.

"With the money we put together we have to buy everything. We have to economize for everything, to give a little food and water to the children. We don't buy enough water, but little by little we will buy everything," she says.

This woman, thin, graying, her skin weathered by the sun, lifts her eyes to heaven to thank God because in the midst of poverty her sons and grandsons seem to be growing healthy.

"Thanks be to God because right now the children are healthy. They don't have skin diseases or diarrhea," she comments. "Thank God, because for the poor everything is difficult, don't you think?"

Economy vs. Water

A few kilometers from Martha Francisca lives Mrs. Julia Berta Aguilar, whose story is very similar. Julia is 33-years-old and she works very hard to raise her six children, ages 14, 13, 11, 8, 6 and 3.

Julia's life was complicated a year and a half ago when her husband was killed while playing soccer in Nueva Suyapa.

The death of the main wage earner made the economic life of the family very difficult; they have been reduced to less than half their weekly income.

Their economic crisis has meant the cutting of basic services like water and electricity that they had been paying for with her husband's salary as a bus driver.

After her husband's death, Julia was not able to pay the approximately $2.00 for monthly water. Her debt accumulated little by little to $108 that "I did not have the capacity to pay," she says.

Julia also makes and sells tortillas to earn a daily salary of $6.00. From that money she must buy firewood, corn and lime to make the tortillas and "after that I am only left a little to buy our food."

The lack of potable water forces her to look for alternative water sources.

Like the majority of women in the area who are united in poverty, she gets water from the ravine below the hill named Little Mountain.

"Look, in the summer I have to go to the well, there at the foot of Little Mountain, to wash clothes, especially the children's uniforms. It is near a point that is very dangerous. I go alone with the girls, risking myself," she explains.

She looks relieved when she notes that "now in the winter, I get rain water and wash here in the house."

She buys drinking water from the corner store near her house. "I buy 2 buckets of water a day (of 5 gallons each) at 15 cents," she says. "When there's no water, I feel like running away."

She laments that she cannot count on anyone for help because she has no family near. "I don't know anyone here. I don't have anyone to go to-only God."

The critical situation facing Julia Berta Aguilar is similar to that of thousands of families who live in the hills bordering the capital city. They have to find a way every day to feed their families, to send their children to school and to obtain the water they need for drinking and bathing.

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