My name is Jeanine Nizigiyimana, and I am 32 years old. I live in Nyabagere, a neighborhood of Bujumbura city, Burundi, in a mud house with 11 family members – my husband, our three children, my sister and her two children, and four children from another sister.
My sisters and I were born and raised in Taba, a part of the Kamenge commune in Bujumbura-Mairie province. During the civil war, my family had to flee because of the heavy fighting and shooting. I was forced to quit school, and I spent my days helping my mother around the house. In Taba we used to have running water, but since the war, we struggled to get even drinking water for our family. As the oldest girl in my family, it was my responsibility to collect water, and I spent countless hours walking to the nearest river to get water.
By the age of 22, I was married. Even though my family and I now live in the city of Bujumbura, we still have no running water in our neighborhood, leaving us at the mercy of the seasons. When the rains come, we collect water from our roof. But during the dry seasons we have to walk 40 minutes up the hill to a small river to get just one pot of water. We use this water for everything – cooking, drinking and bathing. In a household of 12 people, this one pot of water does not last very long.
This water from the river also makes people in my community very sick. Everyone has diarrhea and worms, especially the kids. I used to hope that unlike me, my children would get a good education, but they often miss school because of diarrhea. This year, in particular, has been really hard on us. Normally, the rain starts at the end of August, but because of the late rains, I do not even expect to get a good harvest. I feel helpless living like this.
A few months ago, Oscar Ntakarutimana, the Maternal Child and Health Coordinator from PSI, came to our neighborhood to distribute a chlorine solution called Sûr’Eau, a product that has been made available by UNICEF. He said that it would clean our drinking water and prevent us from getting diarrhea. I was surprised to see how easy it was to clean our water with it.
Oscar even went to my 10-year-old son Jean’s school to teach the kids how easy it was to prevent diarrhea. With fun games, skits and quizzes, he taught all the children the importance of washing hands with soap and using chlorine tablets to clean drinking water.