TWIGGY trees with no sign of life, rocky terrains and a generally dry outlook characterise this location.
Found in the lower south of the country, Chikombedzi is the true definition of a rural area.
With gravel roads dominating, a tarred road is undoubtedly a dream.
Not to talk of the most basic necessity, water, which is a marvel when encountered.
People living in this area travel long distances looking for the precious liquid. This year’s El Niño-induced drought makes it even worse for them.
Gogo Chizheku Chivhinga (62) from Chivhinga village says the recently unveiled piped water scheme by the United States Agency for International Development in collaboration with the government and the Mwenezi Development Training Centre was a timely blessing.
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Like any elderly woman in the village, previously, she had to walk to a school 3km away to fetch water.
Given her old age, it was now a daunting task.
“We would walk for quite some distance to get to a water point and it was getting difficult, so I would only manage to carry smaller buckets,” narrated Chivhinga.
“The piped water scheme is a blessing as we now manage to do some other things with the water, which is now a stone’s throw away from my house.
“I am even doing some gardening to sustain myself and my family in this drought. I don’t know what would have become of us in the not so distant future had we not been assisted with the water point.”
For Selina Hlungwani (41) of Pahlela village the piped water scheme has been a relief as they were facing a lot of challenges emanating from the scarcity of water in the area.
Like many women in the village, her typical day started with preparing her children for school before dashing to outdo the others at the nearest place they could find water, usually over 2km away.
“The struggle for water was intense here. We would rush to be the first to fetch water as not doing so would mean we may not have enough water. I always thought of how I would get my next supply because there is really nothing much one can do without water,” she said.
“There are some who manage to dig small riverbed wells (mufuku), one cannot draw water from their wells without paying money for the water. It was always a challenge to convince them to allow us to fetch water so we ended up travelling very long distances.”
The villagers would resort to any means to get water, though most of the sources were not safe.
“We would face a lot of challenges in our struggle to get water. It impacted on our children’s schooling as we would have left the house before dawn to look for water,” said Irene Chauke (24) of Ramadhaka village.
She said they would go to the mountains to do their washing and they would encounter wild animals like elephants.
The open wells nearby had their fair share of challenges too for Chauke.
“The water we fetched from nearby wells was unsafe and we would get sick from time to time. Snakes, lizards and rats would fall into the water sources and decompose and because there was no closer alternative, we would consume and use it regardless of it being unsafe,” she said.
The project, Thataisa Ramadhaka Community Piped water scheme, has brought relief to the community and enabled them to venture into other income-generating projects.
Due to the scarcity of water, they were not able to do much, especially the women who spent the greater part of their days looking for water.
Sometimes they were subjected to dangerous situations as they sought solutions to their challenges.
Hassan Ncube, Ramadhaka 2 village head, said they were in a very trying situation before the intervention.
“Our lives here were not ok. We would drink water from unprotected wells as people would go for long distances in search of water,” he said.
“We would queue for nearly five hours to get a chance to fetch water for our livestock. With the coming in of the project, all we need to do is open the taps and get water.
“Our livestock too have a proper drinking trough which they can access any time of the day. A lot of our challenges have been resolved by the project. For example, toilets were uncommon here, but the availability of water has birthed the idea of building toilets.”
Ncube applauded the authorities for dealing with the water challenges.
According to the 2024 Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment Committee Rural Livelihoods Assessment, Chiredzi (16%) had the highest proportion of households travelling for more than one hour to and from the main drinking water source while Bikita (2%) had the lowest.
The same report says Chiredzi (37%), Chivi (32%) and Mwenezi (30%) had the highest proportion of households travelling 1km and above to their main drinking water source.