Water in the Anthropocene: Predicaments of People Living in Maxaquene, Maputo City

It’s 5 o´clock, Monday morning, January 23, 2017. I wake up to the sound of knocks on the door from my friend. He is bringing two 20 liters water containers, locally called bidons. He had promised to bring them today.

- Good morning, he says in a hurry. Quick, let’s pour this water into a bigger container and go fetch more water, he suggests. I will go with these two bidons and tell some young boys to bring them back.

He then leaves and comes back with two more and leaves again. I feel that I need to go and help him as he didn’t send the young boys as agreed earlier; so I go to the street after him. As I leave the house, I come across many people carrying bidons in the alleys of Maxaquene B, a poor neighborhood in Maputo city. I go to the main avenue, Milagre Mabote and I see many people coming from the upper part of Maxaquene carrying between one to four 20-to-25-liters bidons.

They look for places in lower Maxaquene to fetch water; they are mostly women between the ages of 18 and 40 as well as younger boys and girls. Apparently, water is not available to all households in the neighborhood. The households with water usually charge 2 meticais* for each bidon regardless of its size.

- You are suffering because you want to hide your daughter from me, a man tells a woman walking past him. If you didn’t hide your daughter I would drive her home with the bidons.

- Yeah, you would carry bidons in both your hands to show what a good mukonwana** you are, another woman walking in the opposite direction adds.

- Leave him, he is just messing with me, the first woman replies. He will come to my house asking for a glass of water and I will refuse him.

They all laugh and continue on their separate courses. The longer I stay on the street the more people show up carrying bidons, as more people wake up from their sleep after a rainy Sunday night. I see some cultural patterns unfold that are embedded in the practice of fetching water in Mozambique like dating, social ordering and kinship in which joking relations play a crucial role.

The cocks are still singing. The breath of the morning is still fresh but for most of these people the hour is already too late as more people come back with no water just lamenting and joking about their predicaments.

- Oh wow, no more water? One woman asks another who is coming back up with one full and one empty bidon.

- No, no more, the other one responds.

- Damn, but water for the toilet… She laments.

- Yeah, your toilets need water, indeed, the other one comments referring to modern toilets as in opposition to traditional waterless toilets.

It’s now ten past six and more people show up with bidons from both the lower and upper parts of the neighborhood but no more water is running. The ration for today is over in Maxaquene B. We can only hope that on Wednesday (see calendar below) there will be a bit more and that some hardworking people who wake up really early in morning will be able to get water to avoid looking like those who felt they needed more rest and are still walking around with dispirited looks on their faces and empty bidons in their hands being mocked by others passing by. Yet again, the power differentials become apparent in an already disenfranchised neighborhood in which structural factors such as poor governance, inequalities, and the existence of Climate Change are not considered the cause of a thirsty home but rather individual factors such as waking up early or late.

Water hasn’t been running everyday these days, as the government decided to start rationing water from January 10, 2017. The neighbourhoods of Maputo would be organized so that they had water every other day.

Source: Águas da Região de Maputo, AdeM, (a company that handles water distribution in Maputo) 2016.

In Maxaquene B however, this means that houses in the upper parts of the neighbourhood do not get water on any days, due to the lower pressure in the pipes caused by the rationing. AdeM, claims that water scarcity is due to the drought that has been going on in the south of Mozambique which has affected water availability in the Umbeluzi River***. This, they say, is an effect of Climate Change. There have indeed been fewer rainfalls during the last two years****. This adds to the already existing political and economic crisis that effect people’s livelihoods in all areas.

Mozambique is far from being the only country experiencing a water crisis. Some parts of South Africa and Kenya, among others, have also been experiencing water shortages which there as well adds to the already existing problems. These crises might be here to stay for a long time and will require more proactive actions from governments, NGOs, academics, and all individuals and collectives.

For now, Maxaquene B is quiet as most people are back inside their homes, quietly starting their days. But I can still hear some voices in the far informing hopeful souls who just woke up: Water is over! Water is over! This is a painful reminder of how dependent we are of nature and how Climate Change, which according to IPCC’s fifth report, is caused by Man*****, mostly from developed and currently developing economies******, impacts us. These impacts are only going to increase in the future unless there is radical change in the structures of economies, transport, farming, livestock, housing and social life. The Paris Agreement brought some hope, but its effectiveness is currently put into question with the rise of the Climate Change denialist Donald Trump as president of one of the most powerful countries in the world. The future is very unclear for most of us in places like Maxaquene B.

Today voices fade away with an angry or disappointed “there is no more water!” What will be next?

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*Approximately US$ 0.029

**A word in Ci-Cangana language literarily translated to “Person married to one’s daughter”

***Marinela, C. 2017. Maputo com restrições de água a partir de amanhã. Available at http://opais.sapo.mz/index.php/sociedade/45-sociedade/43163-maputo-com-restricoes-de-agua-a-partir-de-amanha-.html

****Remédios, J. Dos. 2017. Moçambique regista inflação mais alta dos últimos 25 anos available http://opais.sapo.mz/index.php/economia/38-economia/43230-mocambique-regista-inflacao-mais-alta-dos-ultimos-25-anos.html

*****IPCC. 2014. Climate Change Report: Synthesis Report. Available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

******Fredrich, J. & Damassa, T. 2014. The History of Carbon Dioxide Emissions available at http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/05/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions