The Community Water Jar: Gender and Technology in Guinea

The Research Project

In 2010 Guinea was ranked 156th out of 169 countries on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP’s) human development index based upon life expectancy, education and standard of living. The 2005 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) indicators reported that 57% of the rural and 89% of the urban Guinean population has sustainable access to an improved water source that includes household water connection, public standpipe, borehole, protected spring, and rainwater collection (WHO, 2000; United Nations, 2002). This leaves 32% of the Guinean populations without ‘sustainable improved water’ according to the official statistics in 2005 or 29% in 2008 (United Nations, 2010). For those with and without access to ‘sustainable improved water,’ what are they doing for water? What water sources, practices and technologies are being utilized to supply water for drinking, cooking, cleaning and bathing? What alternatives are used when there is insufficient water available from regular water sources?

It was these questions (and more) that drove our research project on everyday technologies of water, electricity, transportation, communication, and trash in one of the larger cities of Guinea that surveyed over 230 concessions in twenty-five of the twenty-six neighborhoods of with master students from the local university. ¹ The goal of the study was to document the use and application of everyday technologies for approximately 10% of the population of Kankan. The household surveys were carried out in local languages that were translated by research assistants into French. We then did in-depth interviews with self-selected elders from approximately 5% of the initial sample during recurring visits in 2005 and 2006.

This paper will focus on the data related to water from this larger study by addressing how families described meeting their water needs with and without a modern community-sponsored water delivery systems in place, what water workers were doing, and what materials, technologies and knowledge family members were using to draw water. By understanding these everyday water realities of a mid-sized Sub-Saharan Africa urban and global policy makers and researchers may begin to address issues of climate change, privatization of water, drought or meeting the MDGs in ways that are responsive to the women drawing water and the families using water in nuanced ways that move beyond the tradition–modern binary of the absence or presence of improved water sources. The discussion will begin with a description of the sources for water within an urban community and then will continue to how water is moved from source to home via technology in order to make visible what is invisible between the ‘modern world’ of invisible water delivery and the ‘developing world’ of visible water delivery systems (Strang, 2005).

Kankan Water Strategies

The five primary water sources used by the population of Kankan are: rivers, local wells, Malian wells, boreholes and household water connections. None of the respondents mentioned collecting rainwater or using bottled water for their household or drinking use. Fourteen percent of the concessions interviewed in Kankan have only one water source. The majority of these concessions have multiple water sources that they utilize in different ways throughout the year. Within my sample 84% of the population depends on wells for their primary source of water while only 10% cite boreholes (forage) and 6% of the households are connected to the city water system as primary water sources. Approximately 28% of those surveyed do not have water inside their concession; they depend on a neighbors’ water source, public water faucets, public forages, and/or the river for their primary water source. Amongst those surveyed 72% have their own well that may or may not go dry between October and May. Only 15% of the concessions surveyed have water year round in their wells. This means that, starting in March when most wells go dry and until the rains start, potentially 75% of Kankan’s population is looking for water from neighbors, community forages and public water faucets, and/or the river. This is in direct contrast to the MDG indicators that state that 89% of a Guinean urban population like Kankan has sustained access to clean water year round.

One head of household without access to water within her concession spoke of the difficulties of finding clean water particularly in the dry season when her neighbor with an improved well refuses to allow his neighbors to draw from his well because he needs to maintain sufficient water for his own household usage. During the wet season she has permission to draw from his well. However, during the dry season she has to walk three kilometers to fill her containers and then pay a young man with a cart to transport the water back to her household. In most instances we were told of neighbors who are able to share water during the moments of greatest scarcity; those with water in their wells collect for their own needs and then would open the well to their neighbors. Ten percent of the concessions said that they depend on their neighbors for their primary water source. Eighteen percent of the concessions indicated that they depend on their neighbors for their secondary water source. In total, at least 50% of Kankan’s concessions share water sources, either in giving water to or collecting water from their neighbors.

Of those surveyed 38% of the concessions did not pay for water in any form. ‘Free’ water implies that they either have a year round well or a neighbor with one; that they collect water from the river; or that their neighborhood may have a public water source that is free. For the 62% of concessions that pay for water, 34% said it is the responsibility of the male head of household to pay for water, whereas 48% said it is the females in charge of the household, and 18% said it is both male and female elders who pay. These statistics indicate that over half of the population of Kankan are buying water and it is a 60–40 chance that it is the women of the household that are paying for water for the household. Thus one way to ensure the availability of ‘sustained improved water’ in Kankan is to ensure that women have economic activities that provide them with the means to buy water for their households.

Most families have a least two water sources that they use daily. The most common combination is a local well or Malian well in the compound or very close that they frequent when needed, as well as a public forage or pump that is frequented once a day (generally morning or evening) to retrieve water for drinking and cooking. Rarely did concession inhabitants mention treating water for drinking beyond collecting from a known clean source. Occasionally some people would talk of boiling water during the dry season when they were uncertain about the cleanliness of the water for consumption.

One concession of 11 people said that it fills 60 20-liter jugs a week for cooking and drinking at GNF25 for 20 liters (GNF1500 a week). ² This is approximately 15.6 liters of water a day per person for drinking and cooking-related activities. River water is reserved for washing of clothes and bathing when the household well goes dry. Water during the dry season takes on a value determined by the price that can be paid versus the number of individuals available to carry it and the distance that they can carry it. Another concession reported utilizing 60 liters of water daily collected from a distant forage that averaged out to 3.3 liters per person a day for drinking water. Because they live in a lowland where the well rarely goes dry they are able to use the nearby hand-dug well for cooking, washing and cleaning all year round.

The number of people depending on the public fountains and the good will of their neighbors who have water is most evident in March and April. However, it is visible all year long as illustrated by the long lines of water jugs at public fountains, people knocking on doors with empty buckets, or the sight of 20-liter jugs strapped to bicycles. Water workers are visible daily throughout Kankan as they seek to fulfill their concession’s requirements for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing or, in other words, as they find and transport the water that makes life possible in the savannas.

‘Less than Optimal Conditions’

As the third largest city in Guinea, Kankan has a city-wide, piped water system that was built after Guinea declared its independence in 1958 when many donors were willing to help newly independent nations install ‘modern’ infrastructures. The present water bureau is Direction de la Société des Eaux de Guinée (SEG); in the spring of 2005 it officially operated 74 public faucets – ‘bonnes fontaines’ – and had 2,495 registered clients. The director of SEG estimated that SEG serves more concessions than the official subscriber number implies because he suspects that there are residents of Kankan that have tapped into the household connected water system illegally.

The public water faucets were initially installed on public streets in locations throughout Kankan for people who could not afford to bring water into their homes. In 2005 approximately 65% of the 74 public faucets were said to be in working operation. One elder from the Madina neighborhood, Mme Keita, said the public faucets were installed after the death of the first president or approximately 40 years ago. The SEG charges GNF100,000/month for each public faucet and the bill is paid by the neighborhood/community where the faucet is located. In order to pay the SEG, a community representative collects money at the pump to cover costs: SEG suggests a price of GNF25 for 20 liters. In 2005 most of the public faucets charged GNF50 for 20 liters to cover SEG and community expenses. In 2007 the price of water at the public faucets had gone up to GNF100 for 20 liters. This increase is a reflection of Guinea’s current economic problems.

SEG treats river water that is then pumped into one of the two water towers in town for distribution to their subscribers. Only one of the two water towers is in use and it has a capacity of 500,000mm³. The director explained that SEG is continually plagued by problems that include: insufficient chemicals to treat the water properly; insufficient fuel to run the pump; and leaking water towers and pipes. He explained that the water infrastructure is old and wearing out and needs to be replaced. The SEG’s current policy is to supply water on a rotating basis to its clients by neighborhood. However, the neighborhoods that house the hospital, government offices and military camp are given priority when there is insufficient water to equally supply all neighborhoods. Concessions that have connected water may have a water tank which can store two to five days of water in order to take advantage of water when it is available in their neighborhood. SEG does not serve the newer Kankan neighborhoods that have been built since the water system was installed in the 1960s because the infrastructure to serve the new neighborhoods was never built.

Mme Diallo, an elder who has lived near the center of town since independence, reminisced about how, at one time, the majority of concessions in the center of town were connected to the city water system. She described it as the predominate and the preferred source of water for concessions since the 1960s. However, during the last 15 to 20 years, she told how the price of the water increased while the supply of water decreased. She also explained how it became a better economic choice to buy 20 liters of water at the public faucets that would be reserved for drinking and cooking, and to seek out water from wells or river to use for washing and bathing rather than to pay a monthly bill for an unstable, undependable and failing water system.

Moving and Storing Water

A container is needed to draw water from the well and the most common container is a black bag made from an old inner-tube with a wire handle that is attached to a rope, or it may be a small jug cut open at the top and attached to a rope. Occasionally there is a hand pump or a pulley on a well to aid the person drawing water. The black bag is reserved for drawing water in order to maintain its cleanliness and to lengthen its usable life. Generally the bag is kept on top of the covered well, unless the owner is restricting water usage or the bag usage. In some compounds the owners share access to their water but will not share access to their black bag. Thus those who draw from the well may need to bring their own drawing bag. In other words, the water may be free but having the proper technology to access the water and to carry it away is still required.

For carrying water, plastic buckets and jugs are the newest innovation in water technologies because they are lightweight and cheaper than metal buckets or basins which had earlier replaced the traditional earthen jar. The disadvantage of plastic is that it is less durable and has a shorter life span than metal. Understandably the women who collect water prefer the lightest weight containers, particularly for long distances. In choosing to buy a container to carry water the head of household will choose between metal that is durable, strong, expensive and heavy, or plastic that is light weight, inexpensive and less durable. Thus what types of buckets or jugs a household has and uses is a reflection of its resources, economic history and values. All of the elders agreed that the major innovation in water technologies that had affected their lives most remarkably was plastic and metal to transport water rather than the heavy traditional earthen jars of the elders’ youth.

Water is stored in 20-liter plastic jugs, very large cement jars, earthen jars, basins and buckets. Traditional earthen jars are still used throughout Kankan for water storage within the house because they keep water cool and fresh for drinking water. Then, as now, the water jar is rinsed out and refilled daily. Most individuals prefer water stored in the earthen jars because of taste and coolness of the water. A few of the elders remembered filtering water through a clean white cloth when they were young as it was poured into the earthen jar, especially if the water had visible organic matter present in it. One woman said this practice was encouraged by her elders, but the practice had died out before she married. She suggested that it was abandoned because people did not want to take the time to filter it. This hypothesis was mentioned several times to explain changes in household practices where ‘extra’ steps were eliminated in order to shorten the time needed to complete the process. Time-saving has become an important value in women’s lives and is attributed to the process of modernization and/or urbanization.

The cement jars used to store water in the concession were introduced during the first regime and one elder of Sinkefera, Mme Kaba, spoke of her pleasure in acquiring a large cement jar as a bridal gift from her husband. The large cement jar is still in use today to store the concession’s water. Storing and transporting water has changed with the adoption of plastic and metal containers while the traditional earthen jar has become a stationary water storage device. It continues to be employed and valued because of its ability to keep water cool and fresh in the hot savannas. This mix of traditional and modern materials has lightened women’s loads between water source and home while preserving cool, fresh water for drinking.

When given a glass of water in urban Kankan, one might be offered water that has passed through the same complexity of technologies as in an industrialized nation or water that has flowed from its source to lips via a traditional technological intervention: collection at the river with a calabash. Thus the water in the glass may be judged modern if it was treated with chemicals and flowed through the community’s pipes and water tower, when it is removed from human hands and sight, highly dependent on technological objects to make the delivery. The water in the glass may be judged to be traditional because of its dependence on hands using the knowledge and practices of many generations to draw it, carry it and serve it in a local technological object.

Who Moves Water?

In all the concessions it was women and children who were named as the water collectors, dispensers and the primary users of water for cooking and washing. This is not atypical as women around the globe are generally responsible for fetching water for their households (Cowan, 1989; Desai and Devaki, 1994). In Kankan it is said that women draw the water because women are the ones to use the water in the everyday activities of the concession. Factors that determine the time needed to collect water include how far they have to go for water, how early they need to arrive at the pump, how quickly jugs are filled, what season it is, and how many others are waiting in line. During the dry season, it was estimated by one family that it takes four hours waiting in line at the pump to fill the 20-liter plastic containers. Thus it is primarily young women who pay the price in terms of time and energy for water collection (McSweeney and Freedman, 1980; Bryceson and McCall, 1997).

During the dry season in March and April in Kankan, the scarcity of water is pervasive and affects all water users. It is during this time that everyone in the household is called upon to help collect water from whatever source has water. The only exemptions to who carries water at this time are for the very old, the sick and the very young. The entire household may go in search of water daily while other members may go to wash at the river to lighten the load on the water carriers. Individuals with vehicles may be asked to drive to a distant source of water in order to fill the concession’s water jugs. During the wet season some individuals, such as male heads of households or other important males, may be able to be passive about water. However, the dry season requires the cooperation of all to meet the concession’s needs for water. In the dry season, water is so valuable and necessary that all water consumers’ time and labor can be commandeered for the sake of sufficient water for the concession’s use.

Another consideration that structures women’s time management is carrying water to laundry or carrying laundry to water. If the water source is far from the household, laundry will most likely be carried to the river for washing when water is the scarcest. Water use is high in doing laundry and it is often easier to carry the laundry rather than the water to the laundry. When people live close to the river they may use it for washing year round and if they live far from the river only when water is scarce and the closer sources have dried up. One benefit of going to the river to do laundry is that it provides time for the young women to be away from the concession to swim, bathe and socialize, particularly if it is a weekend when many people head to the river for relief from the heat.

Women are responsible for ensuring that there is sufficient water in the concession for bathing needs and depending on the situation for dispensing or supervising the use of the water. Where one bathes is a reflection of age and family status. There are a variety of showering possibilities from indoor showers with or without running water, to outdoor shower stalls separate or combined with latrines. The economic situation of the family is reflected in their showering facilities. Women bathe small children in public spaces generally in front of the house or off to the side. Once a child is old enough to bathe itself, it will still bathe in public space, on the edge of the family compound where adults can keep an eye on the child and ensure proper hygiene. When asked at what age they use the family shower space, older women explained: ‘when they are aware of shame.’ At the age when they start to be aware of their bodies as sexual bodies, this signifies that they are old enough to shower responsibly in the ‘shower’ area amongst potential dangers such as insects and scorpions as well as being accountable for their water use.

Moving into an enclosed shower space is a step towards adulthood, and places the child in a new role/space within the family. Using the shower space is a marker of adulthood, responsibility and importance. How and where one uses water is a part of the differentiation between public and private social worlds. The priority for the shower space always goes to the male head of household and when water is placed in the space it becomes a symbol of his private space as illustrated by the following story told by Mme Keita. Traditionally when a man wants a shower, he tells his wife. She will then collect and, perhaps, heat the water for his bath. Once the wife has placed the water in the shower, the tradition is that she waits with the water to ensure that it stays clean, until her husband arrives for his shower. Mme Keita explained that if the husband is displeased with his wife or wants to punish her he lets her wait possibly all night for him to come to take his shower. The water in the shower space defines the space as his private space to be protected and maintained by the wife. Without water, the space is a public space and available to various users. Water’s role in the shower is one of maintaining and defining social order.

The connection between water and women is strong and circular. It was explained to me that women’s work requires water and, therefore, they are responsible for collecting and transporting water. Another version was that water is reserved for women’s work because it is the women who have a relationship with water, not men. Traditionally it was said that a man will only collect water if the woman is ill because it is the women’s duty to transport water for her husband. One community maxim was that ‘la femmes est la source de la vie tout comme l’eau est source de vie’ – women are the source of life just as water is the source of life. This is an is a very old and traditional coupling within Malinke society that is reproduced and maintained in contemporary society by the continued naturalization of women’s responsibility for drawing water.

Reflections from the Elders

Historically the best well in Kankan was the one on an elevated hill some distance from the river. One elder from Medina, Mme Condé, talked of seeking water there in her childhood when her family’s well went dry. It was in this same location that one of two water towers for the city of Kankan was built in the 1960s and stopped working in the 1990s. Several elders commented that wells are going dry in locations that historically have always had water and that locations where wells typically go dry are going dry a little earlier every year. Hence the elders identified changes in the availability of water that may be due to increased population, increased usage, and/or climate change.

All the elders agreed that the river now was far dirtier and smaller today than it was in their youth. However, river water was still being used for the same activities as in their youth: washing, bathing, drinking, fishing, food production and brick making. Mme Kaba suggested that, since there are more people washing themselves and their clothes at the river, this might be the reason for the river being dirtier now than before. She also described how, when she was a girl and water was scarce, girls had to go to the river very early every morning in order to collect water for their families. With the introduction of the forages in the 1980s this changed and girls could now travel shorter distances to fetch water. However, girls still needed to get to the forages early to fill their water containers particularly during the dry season when demand was the highest.

Mme Traoré, from Bordo, recalled that, when she was young, the river would surpass its current boundaries and flood the city during the rainy season. (It is rare now for the river to rise high enough to flood the city.) She spoke of Sundays as the day to go to the river for relaxing, socializing and finding relief from the heat as opposed to the rest of the week when people made bricks, watered gardens, washed ‘narée,’ watered cattle or travelled up and down the river. Mme Traoré described fishing with her friends as her favorite childhood activity that would take her and her friends away from the watchful eyes of elders and allowed them the freedom to play while also helping to feed the family. She described how all of her friends would help each other finish their chores quickly in order to go fishing together.

With the building of the forages Mme Traoré described how illnesses and the ‘suffering of women’ decreased. Women now had a source of water close to their homes, spent less time and labor gathering water, and drank and bathed with cleaner water. Mme Traoré also remarked that the town began to expand at this time with the new water sources that could support additional residents. Around this same time entrepreneurs began selling water as a means of income generation to those residents that lived further from the new water sources. In the growing city people needed water and, if they did not have the time or means to collect water, they bought it. Mme Traoré commented that water is priceless; water is natural, a resource that is collected from the source and it is available for anyone to draw. She observed that the commodification of water has lessened the comradeship of girls going off to the river and diminished the community’s access to free water. In sum, the forage brought changes to the community by decreasing illness, decreasing the suffering of girls/women, commodifying water, and reducing some forms of group solidarity. One elder of Heremakono, Mme Keita, commented that ‘water equals life;’ water is indispensable for life and the well being of the family.

H₂O and Water: Practices and Beliefs

H₂O is the new stuff, on whose purification human survival now depends. H₂O and water have become opposites: H₂O is a social creation of modern times, a resource that is scarce and that calls for technical management. It is an observed fluid that has lost the ability to mirror the water of dreams. (Ivan Illich 1986: 76)

All of the elders to whom I spoke agreed that who gathers water has not altered and what they use to gather water has become lighter in their lifetimes. They described the increase in types of water sources in their communities while simultaneously the population has also been increasing. The result for water workers has been that the time spent or distance walked has not changed sufficiently in their lifetimes to make it a noteworthy improvement upon daily life between their childhood and today. Their experience is that the modern piped water systems of Kankan is not as dependable and predictable as are the women and children who collect water by walking to the source and filling a bucket for their families’ consumption. This raises questions about why the human-based water systems have not been replaced by the highly technologically dependent water systems, as in other parts of the world.

In order to begin to answer this question, Table 1 illustrates the different knowledge systems and criteria applied to using water from different sources as described by the interviewed community elders of Kankan. The first column shows the history of water sources used by the community in the last 70 years. Please note that all four water sources are still used by the community today and it is not an instance where a newer source has replaced an older source. This implies that modernization is not a linear process (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991) but is a spiral where the new is incorporated and added to the resources of the community and does not displace the other sources as typically assumed when life is ‘modernized.’

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Local ranking of water by source

Chronology of water sources	Scientific knowledge	Scientific practice	Local taste
River	1. Treated water	1. Forage	1. River
Well	2. Forage	2. Piped water	2. Well
Piped water	3. Well	2. Well	2. Forage
Forage	4. River	3. River	3. Piped water

Columns two and three illustrate that people ‘know’ that treated water or H₂O is the cleanest water source in theory and that it is ‘modern,’ while in practice the cleanest water is the forage. The community understands that the treated Kankan water is not always perfectly regulated and may not be as safe and dependable as it should be, whereas water from a forage is always clean. This again challenges an assumption of modernization where the highly technological and scientific system is better than a simpler technological solution.

No one classified river water as being the healthiest water for drinking; however, as column four indicates, elders preferred the taste of river water. Since river water has been a major source of water throughout their lifetime, it is the taste that they are most familiar with for their drinking water and is the ‘water of their dreams’ in the words of Ivan Illich. And this is why household connected water, a newer ‘cleaner’ source of water that has been managed and purified with chemicals and transformed into H₂O, is listed as the least desirable in terms of taste. The preferred taste of river water symbolizes a preference and a value for things outside technical management. This preference illustrates that the elders understand the multiplicity of water and how it is used in their communities; they understand it as something that reflects its origins and use and that it has the ability to take the shape of its container.

There are community norms for behavior around wells that are determined by the type of wells, the time of year, the location of the well, and what is located nearby. It is tacit knowledge for community members that there is a 10 meter radius around the well that needs to stay as clean as possible. Public water sources respect this ‘clean space’ by a cement platform and/or low wall or a simple fence used to define space and to keep animals away. It is forbidden to bathe near a well. Chlorine is used in wells to cleanse them. Well owners purify their wells when they have access to chlorine or feel that the well has become contaminated. Signs of contamination included taste, odor, visual clues or cases of diarrhea in the concession. Ideally it is preferred to treat well water at least once a year, preferably during the rainy season when the water appears to be dirtier than normal.

In general well water was used for washing: clothes, bodies, dishes, and other items while ideally ‘known’ sources of clean water – forages and public faucets – were preferred for drinking and cooking water. Resource factors such as access, money, availability, distance and time determined along with knowledge and experience what became drinking and cooking water. In the concessions sampled there was only a small minority that did not distinguish between drinking and washing water. When there was no distinction made this was an indicator of the family’s resources where all water in the household was used for everything and not differentiated by source and use.

Scientific knowledge systems that rank water sources and classify them as safe for human consumption were known and respected by the women I spoke with. When it is possible they deferred to scientific judgments about potable water. However, there were other valid systems of knowledge that they used in the absence of ‘official’ improved water sources to determine how and where water was used. One such system was experimental: if it had rained the day before, the taste and odor were good, and others using the well were healthy then it can be assumed to be safe to drink. Women depend upon their senses, previous experiences, and their communities’ annual habits to determine the cleanliness of the water and what activity the water is used for.

Illich is asking us to think about H₂O and water as separate categories: H₂O being something created and managed by the modern world and water being from nature and managed by nature. Guinean water workers are daily using H₂O and water in ways defined by modern and traditional as well as by the merger of traditional and modern knowledge systems. If development workers see the problem of clean water only within a modern traditional binary and water simply as H₂O might this continue to contribute to flawed and incomplete solutions to access to ‘clean water’ for all. The dichotomy ignores the fluidity and creativity happening in the everyday reality of water/H₂O workers and their beneficiaries who are using multiple systems and frameworks to meet their household needs for water.

The ‘modern’ water system brings ‘treated’ water into the house that is used for everything from cooking, bathing, washing clothes, toilets, watering, washing cars and washing household objects. There is only one type of water, H₂O, that is undifferentiated from the drinking water or toilet water. In Kankan there are many types of water that are used differently in different circumstances. River water is good for swimming, for washing clothes and cars, and for brick making, while well water may be reserved for only drinking and cooking during the dry season and it may be used for all household needs during the rainy season. The fluidity of water to be used differently at different times and the creativity of the water workers enabled the community (at the time of this project) to provide water to all of its members throughout the year under changing social conditions such as: failed technological systems, climate change, polluted source, or increasing population. Will this fluidity remain to enable them to continue to serve all?

Water Futures?

The Human Development Report (UNPD, 2006: 54) estimates that only 11% of the rural population of Guinea has access to sanitation while 32% of the urban population has adequate sanitation services. Guinea’s current population growth is estimated at 2.6% and its urban populations are on the rise; the forecast for Guinea’s water, sanitation and environment based upon current population trends is bleak for creating sustainable water infrastructures for today and tomorrow. According to global policymakers, technology to transport the water, water institutions to manage and maintain the water infrastructure, local, national and/or global bureaucracies to fund the water infrastructure, and an educated population are all ingredients for improving access to clean water, improved health and a better quality of life. It is assumed that ‘better’ technologies or superior technologies are part of the solution (Lundqvist et al., 2003: 1994).

By believing in the superiority of ‘modern technologies’ the modern/tradition dichotomy is perpetuated because it looks for solutions that are ‘modern’ rather than one that acknowledges and works with the fluidity of tradition and modern that is alive and well in the developing world. For example, the differentiating of water into different categories for different uses has enabled the ‘developing world’ to meet water needs. As the developed world begins to recognize the importance of water, new home technologies are being designed to utilize gray water for certain water uses. This shift by the ‘modern’ world from one dominant water infrastructure to multiple water systems could be described as a new innovation or the adoption of a system already in place in the ‘third world’ depending on its perception as a modern or traditional solution.

Understanding the ‘linkages among technology, water users and socio-cultural context, where water technologies are installed, used and managed’ by development bureaucracies is not new (Singh, 2006: 343). However, understanding these linkages between technology, water users and their socio-cultural context is important where installed ‘modern’ water technologies have failed and where the users have had to develop their own solutions outside of development bureaucracies who are either not present or have failed in some way or another. Public agencies for water supply in Kankan have not succeeded in reaching the entire urban population either in the past or in the present; all Kankan households have had to develop their own access to water. Lindqvist et al. (2003: 1993) suggest that there is little evidence to think the private sector could supply water in developing nations and suggests instead local entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to be the best option for the ‘poor and particularly for those who reside in non-regulated areas.’ My research indicates that community’s and individuals are already finding local solutions to Kankan’s water supply and are active participants in creating local water infrastructures with their available resources that are outside of the market economy. However, will they be sustainable or strong enough to continue to meet the community’s needs under increasing pressures on the local water sources? If these systems had recognition and resources at the community’s disposal, they might just be able to do what ‘modern’ piped water infrastructures failed to do and provide a sustained improved water source to all citizens.

The main finding of this research was in the importance of community solidarity and the willingness of the community to share water. This is why the population of Kankan has continued to have access to water, where over half the population is engaged in sharing or receiving water from their neighbors particularly at moments of greatest scarcity. It is not uncommon in Kankan to see a covered earthen jar sitting under a tree along-side the road with a plastic cup on top. The jar is full of water and any passing friend or stranger is welcome to stop and take a drink of fresh, cool water. Daily the concession’s water worker, probably a young girl, fills the jar for the benefit of her community. In Kankan the community values the right to water and acts on those values by sharing water to ensure that everyone has access. However, as water becomes scarcer, more stress will be placed on this value. It will result in more stories told of neighbors refusing to share water with their neighbors. It will be the water workers, mainly women, whose time, money and energy will be consumed in providing water for the household: it is they who will absorb the initial shock and stress. How long will they be able to do so?

Let us remember that the earthen jar needs to be rinsed daily by someone and replenished daily by someone in order to keep the community healthy. When water is left in the jar too long, it stagnates and is of no use to anyone. Water like our social relations and technological developments must be free to flow, to adapt to new situations in order to maintain a healthy community. By remembering how and where our community water jar is filled and by whom, everyone’s thirst can be satisfied and the health of the community maintained through conscious recognition and application of the creativity of the local in the borderlands between modernity and tradition.