Peter Gostelow

3 days ago

Filling up. Borehole pumps, like this one pictured, are a bit of a life saver when it comes to cycling through Africa. Most of the time you will find women and children filling up buckets and jerry cans, which may then be carried on foot for long distances. Collecting water is rarely ever done by men, although many borehole pumps, particularly in populated communities, are managed. This means that the pump may be locked at times to prevent constant usage throughout the day and night. Those with the key and padlock are often men, at least that was my experience. Typically a pump in such a place may be open for access for 2 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the late afternoon.
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Whenever I passed a busy borehole pump I almost always stopped, unless my bottles were completely full. The coastal regions of Mozambique are low lying and very hot, so I usually carried 4-5 litres of water in the day, and more if it was late and I planned to camp with no knowledge of whether I would find water. As I mentioned a few posts back, water in these pumps is almost always safe to drink, and because it has often come from deep in the ground, it's refreshingly cool.
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A queuing system was usually in place at most busy pumps, even if it wasn't very apparent for a Brit like me 😂, but as I was usually only filling no more than 10 litres, people didn't mind me jumping the queue, and there was usually an energetic helper to pump while I held my bottle beneath the tap, or visa versa.
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Many borehole pumps in Africa have been funded by outside NGOs, so there may be a sign next to a pump saying who paid for it. In more populated and urban communities people pay for water, but in small villages, which is often where I filled up, there was no fee, at least to my knowledge.
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