Berta Zakayo Kimati is a rice farmer and manual worker in a scheme with farmer-led irrigation in Mandaka Mnono. Watch her describe the process whereby farmers have to wait for scheduled water to arrive in the evening and how this affects her role in the family.
Video transcription:
During some occasions we experience spells of dryness, and we have to manage the distribution of water through scheduling. This is where water is distributed occasionally in turn, through managing the water receipt schedules.
As some of the farms are quite far, the water flow is very low and requires some of the women to spend the whole night awake outside starting from 10pm.
As a result of this, domestic problems have arisen within the families. You will find the women are very tired because of sleeping outside in an attempt to secure the much needed water resource for their farms. During the dry season, both men and women have to spend some nights away from their homes and this leads to quarrels.
The resultant domestic problems among the families sometimes spills-over to the children of school attending age, who sometimes go to school without having breakfast.