Meet Elistina, an 80-year-old grandmother who had to walk over 2 miles for clean water.

Story by Wesley Koskei

80-year-old Elistina is a widow and takes care of four of her grandchildren. You can tell from her countenance that she has struggled to survive so many storms in her own life. Yet, as her grandchildren sit around her, you can also tell that she remains an anchor and support system for them.

It’s just after lunch on a hot summer afternoon, and her grandchildren are helping her clean utensils outside their grass-thatched hut. The family home is modest, as many in Malawi’s Chiwamba village are. Poverty has fractured families and communities here like a stone that has cracked fragile glass. Grandma Elistina has been left to care for her grandchildren as their parents moved to urban areas hundreds of miles away for alternative income.

Like many families, her choice is to stop the glass of her family from further cracking, and one way to do this, she says, is to educate her grandchildren. “I work hard for my grandchildren and make sure that I pay for their school fees and keep them well,” Elistina says.

Yet the difficulty in accessing water exacerbated her situation, giving her more things to worry about. The changing weather drying out the streams makes having water to bathe her children and to use at home challenging. At 80, she still works, selling harvested grass while caring for her grandchildren and walking nearly two miles to get less than four gallons of water that only lasts her for a few hours.

“It has not always been like this,” she says as she fetches water from a storage container in the corner of her hut. Her hands are beautiful; they tell a story of a loving grandmother and how she’s worked through the years to support her children and grandchildren. “I am an old woman who had to carry water all that way, and no one was there to help me,” she says. “I could walk miles to fetch water, and no one cared that I was old to help me. It was every man for himself; even young girls couldn’t help me.” It would take her longer to fetch the water than everyone else, and because of the distance and heat, they would drink the water on the way. Some would spill, and she would arrive home with half-filled buckets.

The river nearby dried over time, and when it had water, it was murky and unsanitary because of defecation by people and animals, which worried her. “We fear cholera, but we did not know what to do.” She recalls when the river flooded, and someone trying to gather water drowned. “It’s a pity”, she says, “that fetching water to bring back home has become a life-and-death situation for people in my village.”

The lack of water made it difficult for her and her grandchildren to have regular baths and clean water to drink at home. “People were bathing once a month… What I desire most in this life is to take a bath, wash clothes, bathe my grandchildren, and clean my household and area, at least to have a [desirable] home.”

Photos of Elistina, her granddaughter Flora, and her family & neighbors near the new borehole / Photo Credit: David Brazier

But now, with a new borehole built by Amref, her grandchildren drink water when they want, have water for grandma to cook their favorite meals, and can clean utensils without worrying about where they will fetch water. The newly built borehole is about 10 feet from Grandma’s house. As Elistina walks to the new borehole with her eldest granddaughter, Flora, the rhythm of their soles upon the dry gravel path is a constant reminder of how much distance they had had to cover in the past.

The new borehole is by our Deliver Life Project. Charles Chirwa, the project lead at the time, says, “We are trying to reduce that gap and time women are wasting looking for water, which is a basic need. With water closer, women can concentrate on building their economic wellness, which helps with family development.”

The new water source means it takes less than five minutes to get clean water, and the chances of contracting water-borne diseases like cholera have reduced.

It’s midday, and in southern Malawi, the hot sun at this time of year exposes expansive golden-brown farms spruced with scattered dark green thickets and trees. As she sits at the borehole, waiting for her turn with her granddaughter, they eventually fetch water and, in a few minutes, are back home.

By creating boreholes in communities like Elistina’s, Amref provides safe water, clean hands, and healthy bodies for families. With close clean water access, we reduce girls’ time gathering water so they can focus on school, reduce costs to treat water-borne illnesses and help families have water for cooking, farming, and sanitation.

Water access helps to break the cycle of poverty.