An island without a drop: Lamu residents faced with chronic water shortage

The image is a stark symbol of desperation: goats, driven by thirst, knock over the very plastic jerrycans that hold a community’s most precious commodity. This is the relentless reality on Manda Island, where a chronic water crisis has left both humans and animals in a daily, exhausting struggle for survival.

For years, residents of this scenic Lamu archipelago have lived without a single reliable well. Their survival hinges on a precarious aquatic lifeline: motorboats making the round trip to neighboring Amu Island to ferry back water for sale. What should be a basic right has become a costly, burdensome commodity.

“I have endured this challenge for so long,” says Julie Wangeshi, a community health volunteer. “When I manage to get some water, I have to guard it constantly. Even then, goats come knocking over the containers, or neighbors come begging for a share.”

The crisis cripples daily life and strips away dignity. At the Manda dispensary, the situation is dire. “If someone needs to deliver a baby or have surgery today, where will the water come from?” Asks resident Julia Ndichu. “You take what you can get, without asking where it was fetched from.”

In homes, the water shortage strains the most fundamental routines and relationships. Many couples, unable to bathe with fresh water, are forced to sleep apart. Others resort to washing in the salty Indian Ocean, leaving their skin irritated.

“We women suffer terribly at home because of water,” explains Tsuma Julo. “We can go a whole week bathing in saltwater. We cannot sleep together [with our husbands]. It’s a real problem.”

Joseph Syonda, a local elder, mirrors the plight: “Look at me, I am dirty. These clothes are dirty because there is no water to wash with.”

The sight of boats docked at the Manda jetty, waiting to make the water run to Amu, is a daily reminder of the island’s failed infrastructure. The cost is crippling. For a laborer earning Ksh.500 a day, Ksh.300 is immediately spent on water, leaving a mere Ksh.200 for food and other essentials.

“The biggest wound here is water, it is our greatest problem above all else,” says Tom Nyagilo. “If you earn Ksh.500 from a day’s work, Ksh.300 goes to water, Ksh.200 to vegetables. That’s it.”

This struggle persists despite government promises. A report from the Office of the Auditor General reveals that Lamu County government spent Ksh.14.9 million on a water supply project meant to pipe water from Shella to Manda. The project remains incomplete, a ghost of a solution.

Efforts by journalists to get answers from the Lamu County Water department have hit a wall. Repeated phone calls and formal letters have gone unanswered, leaving the people of Manda to feel abandoned.

As the boats come and go, and the goats roam for a stray drop, the people of Manda Island continue their weary wait—for accountability, for completion, for the simple, transformative gift of clean, accessible water.