Waking up to that morning cup of coffee is a luxury Hend Mokhtar, 28, can’t afford. When she goes to bed at night she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to bathe her three-year-old Fahmy and her six-year-old Abd El Rahman. At days she even worries she might not be able to fix them a simple breakfast of boiled eggs.

Hend lives in Hod El Kantara in Cairo. For several years she, like other residents of the area, had wars with water; most households in the area do not have access to fresh water and get polluted water not fit for drinking only at night. Despite having installed a water pump motor, which had cost each flat in the building LE100, they can only get murky water through it; if they’re lucky enough and the motor works that day. “We have to fix it every month, it keeps breaking down and it costs us a monthly LE10 to fix it,” explains Hend, “We just installed it to get water for cleaning and showering and so on.”

A Day in the Life of Hend.

Hend wakes up at 7am to prepare her six-year-old for school. She prays on her way to the bathroom that anything will come out of the tap when she turns it on; it doesn’t matter if it’s fresh water, just water will do.

If the family is in luck that day Hend bathes Abd El Rahman with that murky water. “People here know it is unfit to for human use but what can they do? That’s the only water that their houses can have,” says Hend in despair. On bad days, Hend’s husband has to travel half an hour on his motorbike to Al Waily district to fill a tank of water from relatives living there. By the time he is back Hend and the kids would have waited an hour and Abd El Rahman would be late for school. She then has to heat the water and use a water jug for cleaning him.

Comes noon, Hend starts with the household chores. If the water is still out, which on most days it is, Hend will just skip the cleaning parts that call for water; which includes laundry, cleaning the dishes, cleaning the floor, the bathroom and the kitchen. If it is absolutely necessary, she would have to use their stock of fresh water which they had filled from relatives or elsewhere; but priorities usually mean that the cleaning is postponed until the yellow water is back in the tap to save fresh water. Comes cooking time, Hend is really careful with the types of food she cooks; she has to pick ones that won’t use a lot of fresh water to keep her little supply.

Others who can’t get fresh water from their acquaintances or relatives, have run out of it, or simply aren’t healthy enough to carry water tanks back to their houses, simply buy modest foods and skip cooking altogether; the extra cost is simply a burden they can’t afford.

The Journey to Water 

When Abd El Rahman is back from school, the husband would probably be still at work and the water supply would probably have run out. Although the yellow water might be back in the taps in three or four hours, they still need to get fresh water.

Hend takes Abd El Rahman and Fahmy along to fetch clean water from the nearest source; a mosque that lies 15 minutes away from their home. Hend and the kids wait in the long row of people waiting to fill all sorts of containers; bottles, bags, small tanks; whatever they can find.

Hend would carry the small tank and the kids would carry a bottle each and walk back with the heavy weight on the now-prolonged return trip and then up seven floors to reach their house.

“Then the bags would break and the children would get a beating,” Hend laughs.

When asked why she would give them a beating when it wasn’t their mistake the bag broke, she simply says, “you’ve been carrying all that weight all the way, you’re tired but yet you have to carry it up again seven floors; you end up tired, stressed and suffocating so the smallest thing would make you snap.” Because she can’t possibly carry more than she does in one journey, Hend has to make the journey twice to get enough water for their use.

But still, the water she gets from the mosque would many times give the children stomach viruses. “My kids have had many viruses in their stomachs due to the water we use! So have lots of people in the area; but what can we do?” asks Hend.

“If there is no water in the mosque as well we have to take a taxi or a toktok to go fill bottles with water from somewhere else,” says Hend. Many times the yellow water is cut off from the taps and the fresh water from the mosque leaving her with no water at all; neither fresh nor yellow. When she loses hope after a few days, Hend would pack up and move to her parents’ until the water is back to her place. “It might be gone for a week or 10 days, so I just up and go!”

A Day Wasted for Water

All in all, she spends about two hours fetching water daily, half of which is spent carrying the load with her children, and has to go up the seven floors twice carrying the bottles and tanks. Her husband would also spend an hour in the morning getting water for bathing, cleaning or other non-drinking purposes if the murky water the motor pumps up is out, something that happens more often than not. This means that the family altogether spends a minimum of three hours a day getting fresh or unclear water.

Hend concludes with a laugh, “Anyone who visits me they don’t bring fruits or chocolates it isn’t important; they bring me water bags as a gift.”