Testimonies

Firyal Bani 'Odeh, 48

I was born in Tammun and live here with my husband and eight of our twelve children. My husband built our house about 28 years ago, when he had a good job. The house has two floors, each 110 square meters. Each floor has four rooms, a kitchen, shower, and bathroom. My husband and I live on the first floor with our five daughters and two sons who are not married. On the second floor, another son lives with his wife and their four sons.

Tammun doesn't have a running-water system, so everyone in the village uses rainwater. We drink from a pit that my husband dug in the yard, which stores rainwater that falls from the roof of the house. When that runs out, we buy water from tankers that the municipality sends, at a cost of 70 shekels each, or my husband buys water outside the village at a cheaper rate. There are also private dealers who charge much more for the water. For the past decade, our financial situation has been horrible.

It's impossible to run a household with so little water. I save every drop. I use a very little bit to wash the house and dishes. I wash our clothes by hand with a small appliance and then squeeze the water into a clean bucket and use it for the toilet or to water some trees.

Once, we used to take regular showers, but now we wash ourselves with a tin can of water. Each of us uses a ten-liter can. Our eldest son works for settlers in farming and has to shower every day, and he, too, uses the tin can. The rest of us shower once a week. Ten liters is not enough to really wash yourself. The water that remains after we wash is used to water the trees. The drain from the showers and sinks in the house runs into our garden. My husband is a butcher, and he needs water to wash the chickens. Despite our attempts to cut down, we need to buy two or three tanker loads a month.

When the water in the pit runs out and we can't get hold of water at a cheap price, I save even more. We stop doing laundry, don't wash ourselves, and don't wash the house until we find water to buy at a cheap price. It often happens that we run out of water and I go with the children to fill buckets at my brother's house. This can last for a day or two.

I feel terrible whenever we run out of water, but that's the way we live and there's nothing to be done about it. It makes me sad, but I have faith. It is hard to live and work at home in such a primitive way. I have a bathtub, but I shower with a tin can. It breaks my heart. I don't have money to buy a real washing machine, and in any case, a washing machine uses a lot more water than washing by hand.

Firyal Yusef Ahmad Bani 'Odeh, 48, married with twelve children, is a homemaker and a resident of Tammun Village in Tubas District. Her testimony was given to 'Atef Abu a-Rub at the witness's home on 25 May 2008.