I think it would be a very good idea to give people some ideas as to the real situation of things and what and where the "outside" world's assistance and perceived help goes to, positive and negative.

OVERVIEW
I will address some examples of the question "What do you believe the impact could be on an area without access to clean water, once a means of access to clean water was established?"

I will tell you about the life of two villages, Lebendera and Namare. My main home is Ngurunit which is in a river valley which can provide water in wells the whole year through, though sometimes the wells are dug really really deep. They never dry up. This makes the area the main watering point for miles around during the dryer times of the year when other places where people live in the outlying areas have no water.

Lebendera is a village 12 Km (about 8 miles) away from Ngurunit. Namare is a bit further along at 20 Km (about 15 miles) away. Both of these villages have sources of water (open water pans and wells dug at the base of water collecting rocks) that only last for a part of the dry season. Once they dry up, the women are forced to take donkey's everyday the long road to Ngurunit to get water for their household needs and the young livestock that isn't big enough to walk the long distance to the wells for watering. That means from Namare, a woman will wake at 5:00 am, make tea if she is lucky to have some water left over from the day before and take her donkey and walk 6 hours to Ngurunit. She fills all the water containers her donkey can carry and heads back to her home 6 hours. With having to rest during the heat of the midday, this means she arrives home by 9:00 or 10:00 pm. Then she cooks the one meal for her family, waters the young animals and then sleeps. Only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again. This can go on for several months at a time while they wait for rains after all the closer sources have been used up.

If asked why they live where they do and don't move closer to a water source, they will answer they have to do it for the animals. The place they live has good pasture and is free of disease. If they all packed in closer to the water, the livestock, which they depend on for survival, would die.

Lebendera, while closer, does the same thing everyday. They have serveral good sources but they get contaminated and stopped up by wild animals and stray livestock. Because of the problem and the women having to struggle so much for the water, they have banded together and we were able to apply for a water source protection project. We just heard that it was successful and now will start the process of building. It will be hard but the community is committed to seeing improvement in their water access.

Namare is also getting assistance to build a rock water rain harvesting tank catchment to be used for providing fresh water to the primary school for the areas children. It won't be enough for the whole community but at least will provide some water for the children. And in Namare, while it isn't really clean water, a water collection pan (like a pond) was constructed with assistance from a bulldozer tractor owned by an organization in the district center. This water, though open and very brown and dirty (it is protected by a local thorn fence but still gets contaminated), has really assisted the villages around it because it lasts longer after the rains than their other sources and can sometimes carry them through from rain to rain or at least run out only a few weeks before the next rains so the many hours daily journey to water that I mentioned above only has to be made for a few weeks instead of for 2 or 3 months at a time while waiting for the rains.

Because of this, (access to water- even dirty water) the woman's life is made much easier and then they can have more time to pursue other activities for the improvement of their households such as better health and sanitation practices, handicrafts for sale for income, attending adult literacy classes for raising their awareness, concentrating on improved childcare, taking better care of the youngstock so there is less mortanlity and an overall improvement in the livestock and many other things.

To this end, even though one project has been promised funding, as it only provides clean water enough for the school kids and the rest of the people continue using the available dirty water, we have also identified another water source that is a rock catchment pond that is situated in such a way that it can be covered, thus making it cleaner (as it is rain water fed). That is the life here. One gets a bit of improvement through hard work and then keeps on looking for even better paths to improve even more. Never ending but at least we have hope. They keep trying because they have recognized the incredible benefits to all when succeeding.

Lebendera also, while one project is funded and possibly another water pan to be supported in the near future, we have identified 3 other sources that we are still trying to find a way to develop them for the betterment of the community.

So let me end there for now. Because these are only two communities I work with. I had mentioned before the main one with all the wells accomplished, Ngurunit. Then there are four others about 18 yo 40 Km (15 to 35 miles) away that I am trying to get funding for a camel project that also includes water source development activities. We have learned that no matter what subjects we try to get support for or what areas the communities identify as needing to improve (health, environment, livestock, education, wildlife conservation, marketing) the subject of water somehow comes into it in one form or another.

So let me not try to talk about all of it at one time. Just will emphasize that yes, any positive change in the water situation among the pastoralists anywhere in Northern Kenya, not just specifically where I live and work, has a profound positive impact on the people that depend on that water, be it health, work load, empowerment (women now owning wells for the first time), and source of livelihood (opening up new grazing areas through water source development so livestock can be healtier and produce more for the family).