Family without water and electricity

By Aruna Lolani 13 July 2017, 12:00AM

Faleupolu Tavita, his family has been plagued with water and electricity for some months now.From the village of Vailu’utai,  Faleupolu admits that no access to electricity and water is making life hard for him and his family. 

He explains how the power wires can’t reach his home as well as water pipes.  

“It all comes down to the fact that the water pipes and electricity lines can’t reach our house,” he said. 

 “These are the main struggles that my family faces.

“I’m very sad we’ve been having problems with water for almost a year. We dont know when the water will reach out house.

“So whenever it rains, we are so thankful because we are able to fill up our water drums and buckets. 

“My family is always busy going around looking for somewhere we can get some water from. 

Faleupolu is a father of three grown up girls. His wife is the sole breadwinner of the family. 

“This is the biggest issue on my mind because my children are only girls and as far as I know we need to prioritise them. They are also all in school. 

“We don’t have enough water for our basic needs so what we do every day is my kids go down the to the inner village to my family   and do their studies there and shower.  

“This has been the case for almost a year now and I admit I need help. 

“My wife does work down at the airport but she doesn’t get enough pay to cover everything. 

 “This issue has been going on for a while now. Having a basic necessity like this going on and off makes everything tough on our family.

Every day, the father and his children walk around in search of water. 

“We get our water from some neighbours,” he said.

“But most of the time we walk down to the main road with our buckets. The families living down by the main road are very lucky because they have reliable water.

Asked if he has sent any requests to the government for assistance, Faleupolu says he would if they had enough money. 

“But we do ask our neighbours who have the electricity if we can connect but it’s not yet confirmed. “I don’t want to push them if they don’t want to but we’re still trying to get our own. “I would have requested the government if we had enough money to do it.”

By Aruna Lolani 13 July 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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