Serekunda Off The Beaten Path

Out in the coutryside, the villages are small and poor, with no running water or electricity. Despite this obvious hardship, the people are always very friendly and welcoming, especially the children.

With help from various charities and the government, some of the villages do have much more modern facilities for collecting water. This well, which was right in the middle of the main road through the village, takes away a lot of the backbraking work of hauling water with a rope, and also saves a great deal of time.

First we stopped to look at a very traditional well, where the women haul up buckets of water for drinking and irrigation of their vegetable gardens. I had a go myself at pulling up the buckets - it was very hard work, as the well is about 10m deep.