Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter al­most a month with­out a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply, 73-year-old Boodram Sama­roo has been strug­gling to care for his bedrid­den wife and man­age dai­ly chores.

Sama­roo of School Road, Bonne Aven­ture, Gas­par­il­lo, was among scores of res­i­dents who yes­ter­day com­plained about the hard­ships they have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing with­out wa­ter.

“My wife is sick. It’s a whole month and more now. And dur­ing that whole month pe­ri­od, we on­ly get wa­ter once.”

As a con­se­quence, he said they could not care for her prop­er­ly.

“My madam is in bed, on a mat­tress, ly­ing down. It doesn’t have wa­ter to clean she. We tak­ing wipes and wip­ing she.”

He said they have to buy wa­ter for drink­ing and cook­ing, while he us­es runoff from his air-con­di­tion­ing unit, which col­lects in a buck­et, to wash wares.

While some res­i­dents re­ceived wa­ter yes­ter­day morn­ing, oth­ers, in­clud­ing Sama­roo, had to wait un­til night­fall for their sup­ply when the pres­sure builds.

“When they open this wa­ter, by the time we take to full the tank, all wa­ter gone again. It tak­ing the same length of time to come back and get wa­ter, three weeks, a month; that’s how it’s go­ing. This time is the worst, is the longest while we ain’t get wa­ter.”

His neigh­bours, Ram­chan Sama­roo and Rad­hay Sama­roo, who are re­lat­ed to him, com­plained that they have to trav­el to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to col­lect wa­ter.

Rad­hay said he some­times makes four or five trips per week to fill sev­er­al con­tain­ers for his house­hold. “This is not right at all,” he com­plained.

Sher­iza Jaglal, a moth­er of three who lives on the low­er end of the street, was re­lieved when she saw wa­ter flow­ing from her taps yes­ter­day morn­ing.

She im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan fill­ing her tanks and do­ing laun­dry.

De­scrib­ing the wa­ter sit­u­a­tion in her com­mu­ni­ty as ter­ri­ble, she said, “We’re frus­trat­ed. We try to hold on with anger, but it’s not good at all. “

She said her daugh­ter’s school in Gas­par­il­lo was dis­missed ear­ly twice in the past week be­cause there was no wa­ter.

Jaglal ap­pealed to the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) for a reg­u­lar sup­ply, sug­gest­ing that res­i­dents re­ceive wa­ter for two con­sec­u­tive days each week.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Mustafa Mo­hammed, of Pond Lane, School Road, said they had com­plained to the MP’s of­fice and WASA and were promised a truck-borne wa­ter sup­ply.

He said the past few days were dif­fi­cult, as they had to ra­tion wa­ter for cook­ing, flush­ing the toi­let and bathing.

Michael Paul, who lives on Caratal Road, al­so com­plained that res­i­dents were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar wa­ter woes.

He said by the time the pres­sure built up enough for wa­ter to reach his taps, they had on­ly a few hours be­fore the sup­ply was shut off again.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed WASA for com­ment, but did not re­ceive a re­sponse up to press time.