Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene | Page 29

Water Supply

In a Malian village, a simple wish for clean water
By UNICEF Mali
For a remote village in central Mali, the prospect of a new borehole means more than just a shorter walk to water – it
also means better health and new possibilities for the whole community.

© UNICEF Mali/2015
Samba Tembely, 10, collects water from a cave near her village of Kama Sareme, in
Mali’s central highlands. The cave is a 2 km walk from the village, the water often
unsafe for drinking, and the jerrycans heavy to carry back.

I

t is a daunting sight. A dozen adults, some of whom
Samba Tembely has never seen before, are seated in the
chief ’s yard.
“Tell them your favourite activity,” says Siggi, the 10-yearold’s mother. Samba speaks up: “I like collecting water in
the cave with my friends.”It seems to be the wrong answer,
because the adults burst out laughing. Samba wishes she
could just vanish.
Among the visitors is Abdoulaye Najim, the local head
of the Malian state water board. He is here, along with
UNICEF, to assess the water needs for Kama Sareme,
with a view to the village being included among the next
10 locations for a borehole.
Najim addresses the petrified 10-year-old: “If you did not
have to walk two kilometres to the cave and carry back
heavy buckets of water, you would have more time to do
your homework, wouldn’t you?” Samba looks back at him,
puzzled: “But I don’t like doing homework,” she protests.
Walking to the cave
Kama Sareme, on a limestone elevation in central Mali
known as the Bandiagara escarpment, is less than an hour’s
drive from the nearest tarmac road but it is among the
least developed of villages in one of the world’s poorest
countries. The area is home to the Dogon, an ethnic group
with distinctive religious and cultural traditions.
The spirited 10-year-old is among 560 adults and children
in this remote village with no electricity and no reliable

© UNICEF Mali/2015
Siggi Tembely and her daughter Samba sift and clean dried wild grapes with which
Siggi makes juice. The water for the juice comes from the cave where Samba collects
it.

source of clean water. The nearest school and health
centre are six kilometres away.
“Our main income is from shallots,” says village chief
Yalemo Djiguiba, 59. “Other Dogon villages manage to
grow shallots year round, thanks to damming the river and
using well water. We have access to a spring, in a cave, but
it sometimes dries up.”
Samba and her friends take the visitors to the cave, a
15-minute walk from the village, Xܛ