“There is no greater gender issue than water,” Mrs. Seodi White, National Coordinator for Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust, told me. “If only Malawi paid as much attention to women as it does to roads, we would be getting somewhere.” Malawi’s roads are indeed quite impressive, with most of the major tarmacs free of potholes, and even “robots” (i.e., traffic lights) at several of the major intersections in both Lilongwe and Blantyre. Water is a gender issue primarily due to the time burden it places on women, who are largely responsible for fetching water for the family each day, in addition to doing the cooking, cleaning, and washing, all of which require water. The time spent procuring and using water by women in Malawi is time not in school, time not earning money, time not at a health centre, time not…anywhere, except at the local well, or stream, performing one of the daily tasks required to sustain their families.
On the road home from Mt. Mulanje, women pumping water at a well. I saw three wells on this one-hour drive, each one surrounded by one or more women filling buckets with water. 
Picture taken by my friend Lidwein, a medical student from Holland. As we were walking towards Mt. Mulanje we passed over a bridge and in the stream below were a group of women washing clothes.
Two years ago, while living in the village of Naitiri, in western Kenya, I spent a day with the public health officer visiting several local water springs. Hidden between maize fields, nestled in valleys, or underneath groves of palm or acacia trees, water springs are always located at the end of a narrow, well-traveled footpath. I remember that day we visited nine local water sources, two of which were protected, leaving seven unprotected and therefore unfiltered and contaminated with bacteria, chemical run-off, and animal waste. One water source may provide water to 1,000 or more people. Quite possibly the cruelest consequence of this harsh reality is that too many HIV-positive mothers are forced to decide between breastfeeding and possibly transmitting the virus to their newborn, or mixing formula powder with contaminated water, risking dysentery, typhoid, bilharzia, cholera, or other water-borne, diarrheal diseases that account for 18% of the under-five mortality worldwide (UNICEF State of the World’s Children 2008).
Near the rural village of Naitiri in western Kenya, a primary school girl carries water home to her family
