In parts of northern Haiti, development can be quite dense and there is very little land available on which to drill a water well. Following the devastating 2000 earthquake, there was limited community consultation and Lifewater teams gladly drilled wells on whatever land was offered.
In 2004, Lifewater volunteers who were auditing wells in Haiti had a problem. One of the wells that had been drilled several years earlier had disappeared! First the team thought that maybe the pump had been stolen so they looked through tall grass for the borehole and pad. The GPS coordinates told them they were in the right area, but there was no sign of the well.
Then a gate in the wall of the adjacent private home opened — and the team found their missing well! it hadn’t moved. But after the well was originally drilled, a landowner built a security wall around his property — which included where the well was. The well effectively “vanished” as a source of communal water for surrounding residents. The landowner was a powerful political figure, and no one dared protest to him or to complain to Lifewater.
After discussions with Lifewater, the landowner agreed to have his watchman keep the gate open for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon for surrounding residents to come and draw water.
This taught us the importance of spending time and effort to be assured that land on which we drill is communal land, with a small parcel being severed off for this purpose if necessary. Since then, no further problems like this have arisen.
