“The water problem in Bouiguarila: different initiatives to compensate for the lack of water” (Mali) – April 2021

• A village dam to fight against water shortage:

“We made this dam with stones. We assembled the stones, this part is hollow. The water comes from up there, goes down and arrives here.

To find a solution to the water problem, we made a joint decision to create this dam so that not all the water in the river would flow out.The water comes with great force, the river fills up. This is the idea we had to keep some water here with our small means. “

• Digging ponds for the market gardening activity

“We are in a place where we practice market gardening. We work here and if you see that it works well, it’s because we have dug places to reserve water, a pond here and another one behind us. But these things are the result of a lot of courage because we have to keep pulling water to store it in the basin, and from the basin we water the crops like okra, aubergine, lettuce and chilli. Despite this, all the chilli plants are dry because there is not enough water. In any case, we have the courage to always draw water from the well to fill the basins and water the crops. Those parts that don’t get water are dry. With our work, things are gradually changing. For market gardening, there is a lack of water, and when there is no water, even if you want to, you can’t work well. Here, it’s a banana tree, but if a banana tree doesn’t have enough water, it’s impossible for it to succeed. “

• Protecting cassava from water shortage

“In my cassava field, there is not enough water, so I had to remove the cassava stems ; I keep them in the shade under the tree and I water them to keep them alive and not to lose them. If I put the stems here in this hole, they are healthy and usable when the rain comes; these are the first to be planted, when you plant them like this and water them from time to time, they last until the rain. “

• An unfinished well

“In our parents’ time, the hydrologists came and designated this spot as a good one for a well, so when it was ready, the village hired a group of well diggers to do the work.

This involved a lot of expense because we didn’t know how to dig a well ourselves, so the ones we hired dug to a certain height. There was some water and they built the boundary wall but the well didn’t really reach the water in depth. We ran out of money, the workers stopped work and the well remained in this state. So we are looking for help, or if we manage to get the money ourselves, we will dig that well again to get water. Lack of water has many consequences, so we were motivated to collect the money to dig this well. What we didn’t expect was that the water was deeper than expected so there are still several metres to dig to get the water. “

• Digging holes in the marigot

“During the dry season we dig holes like this in the Marigot. We do all our activities with this water: market gardening, the women wash their dishes and our animals drink here.

We have also built a dam, but it is not very efficient, we are looking for solutions. For the moment we don’t have any. All we have found is this place to store water. “