In Tangerang, Indonesia, safe, clean water is a precious resource, one that 60-year-old food seller Rohani, her husband, and her children had long made do without. Like many others in the small village of Kohod, they had no clean running water, no well to draw from.
While they cooked and occasionally bathed with expensive store-bought gallons of water, Rohani’s family otherwise had no access to water that was potable. With her husband working as a laborer in the rice fields, and her only son also working, staying clean and healthy was essential. But paying for shower water for a family of six became simply too expensive to maintain. Often, Rohani would need to bathe in the cloudy water she carried back to the house from the nearby Cisadane river instead.
“My water was yellow, my body was yellow, my teeth were yellow,” she says.
According to Rohani’s daughter, Sarnah, their furniture had even taken on a yellow tinge. Worse than that, Rohani noticed that bathing with the river water caused her skin to itch, a common complaint in the area, due to the unusually high levels of iron in the murky water.
Rohani couldn’t focus on her food selling business in such conditions. Soon, Rohani’s family could no longer deny that the lack of access to fresh, clean water was untenable.
“Everything had a lot of problems,” said Sarnah. “When my mom got help from this water, everything changed.”
Supported by a USD $925 loan from 24 Kiva lenders, Rohani was able to finance a compressor-drilled well and water tank for her family, vastly improving her quality of life and allowing Rohani to support her community and her children.
Water shouldn’t make you itch
While Rohani’s water problems were certainly dire, they are not uncommon. After years of droughts and dry seasons in northern Indonesia, especially in rural areas near Jakarta, the country’s capital, people are facing a serious water shortage.
Rural villages like the one where Rohani lives bear the brunt of these harsh conditions. Many wells dried up in 2019, and in dry years, even groundwater can be hard to come by. Most Indonesian households spend a great deal of their income on clean, store-bought water to bathe with, cook with, and drink. Even those who do have access to older wells, with running water or not, often need to add additional filters to the wells to make the water safe to use. Often, families who draw from these wells are forced to boil their water before drinking it. This process of finding water, carrying it home, and boiling it is arduous, protracted work, and the time families spend trying to make their water safer to use is time that could otherwise be spent working, going to school, or caring for their children.
But thirst is not the main issue here — the lack of available potable water means that people can have trouble keeping themselves clean, which leads to discomfort, bad health, and disease. In fact, a quarter of all Indonesian children under five contract diarrhea, which, in conditions without safe water, becomes lethal. In Indonesia, diarrhea is the leading cause of child mortality.
Rohani’s situation in Tangerang is indicative of how climate change can impact whole populations, leaving them without ways to fulfill the fundamental human needs that keep us all alive and healthy. As household sanitation becomes more unaffordable, climate-threatened people like Rohani are forced to make tough choices that place their budgetary needs above their own safety.
How do water expenses compare in Indonesia vs. the U.S.?
“How much does a gallon [of water] cost?” says Rohani. “If I'm constantly bathing in a gallon of water, that’s 5,000 [rupiahs]. Is one gallon enough? No, ma'am. One person, one gallon. Not yet washed.”
Let’s put these expenses into context. In the United States, the average person uses about 17 gallons of water for an eight-minute shower, according to a 2016 study by the Water Research Foundation. Even if a person takes a fast, two-minute shower, that’s still around 4 gallons per person per shower taken.
In Tangerang, Rohani and her family spend 5,000 rupiahs (or 33 cents USD) on a single gallon of clean water. If we assume that a single shower — even a fast one — uses around 4 gallons of water, that’s $1.33 per shower. In Rohani’s case, let’s say two people — her husband and her son — shower once a week using store-bought water.
That would put Rohani’s household showering expenses at around $138 a year. By contrast, Americans (who shower much more often than once a week, and at an average of 17 gallons per shower), only pay around $118 annually for their water consumption. It might not seem like that much of a difference, but consider this: according to the Social Security Administration, the average national wage index for Americans is around USD $66,500 annually. In Indonesia, the average annual income is only USD $5,200.
As a businesswoman, Rohani knew that these expenses were simply not sustainable, especially since it wouldn’t even cover the water her family needs to stay healthy.
A fresh start with her own well
When Rohani learned about Kiva Lending Partner Benteng Mikro Indonesia (BMI) from a neighbor, she applied right away. BMI is an Indonesian cooperative, and part of its mission is to improve the living conditions of communities in Tangerang, where Rohani and her family live. Their goal is to help families like hers, who face the impacts of water pollution in the area, by getting them access to clean, safe water.
Having partnered with Kiva since 2014, BMI has raised over $12M for its borrowers via Kiva’s crowdfunding platform. With the help of Kiva lenders, Rohani received a water and sanitation loan from BMI to allow her family to access safe, clean water. Now Rohani is not beholden to the steep price of store-bought water, which means that her household budgeting looks a lot more flexible when it comes to water use.
“It’s better to drill water than [buy] gallon water,” she says. “Now I am very happy to have clean water.” Now, not only can she support her own household’s water needs, she can also lend a hand to the rest of her community as well, helping support their needs — particularly for special occasions or during times of hardship. “The change is 100% better,” Rohani says of her new well.
“We have water for washing, for bathing, and then helping the neighbors if there is a celebration…Thank God, it’s better, happier than before.”
She’s more confident now that she has access to her own clean water. She’s clean and healthy, and can support her husband and family’s sanitation needs, too. “Her body and her hands look a little white,” Rohani’s daughter Sarnah laughs.
The whole household has a lot more joy now that their basic needs are met. Rohani can focus on business again, and she even dreams about the future, which, in her eyes, comes down to how her children are doing.
“Even though I'm old like this, in my sixties, I have plans for the future, yes,” she says. “The plan is to make my children successful.”
Learn more about the ways that Kiva supports climate-threatened people like Rohani.
