By Salwa Mahmoud
In the dry and forgotten corners of Lamu East, water is life. Yet it is treated like a game by those in power. For years people survived on water kiosks. The water was salty and hard. It left stains on utensils and sickness in stomachs. Then came a light of hope. During the time of the former governor, the Mai Mekoni project was introduced. Underground water channels were built, bringing fresh water close to homes. For once, people had clean water. Children drank without fear. Women no longer walked miles. It was simple. It worked. It gave life.
Then elections came. And like every season of politics, what worked was destroyed. The new leadership ignored the Mai Mekoni system and ran back to the old water kiosks. The underground pipes that once carried life were left to rot in the soil. Taps went dry. Hope dried with them. What sense does it make to abandon a working system and return to one that failed? Millions of shillings were wasted. Time was wasted. Lives were wasted.
Today, the people of Lamu East are back to walking for water. Some wake up before sunrise and walk for hours under the burning sun just to fetch a few liters. Women and children are forced to travel long distances, exposed to risks on lonely paths, all because of careless leadership. What hurts most is that the water they struggle for is still hard and salty. Nothing has changed except the faces in office.
Lamu East also depends on small scale farming. But without water, the farms are dry and cracked. Seeds rot in the soil. Nothing grows. Without rain or clean water, families that once dreamed of feeding themselves now wait for relief. Leaders talk about food security, but how can there be food when there is no water?
It is not the county government saving the people anymore. It is the NGOs. Groups like NRT have stepped in to provide desalination machines that turn salty water into clean water. They are the ones giving life while the government looks away. It is a shame that outsiders have to do what elected leaders failed to do.
This is how waste looks in Lamu. A working project buried. Money gone. Effort forgotten. Pain returned. The Mai Mekoni system proved that progress is possible. The new leadership proved how quickly greed and pride can destroy it. The people of Lamu East deserved better. They deserved water, not politics.
