To gather as much water as they can, ladies in a rural Afghan village attach yellow plastic jerry cans to donkeys and ride them down a dusty canyon every day.
The roughly 30 residents of Qavriyak, in the middle Bamiyan province, have little enough space in the containers for drinking, let alone their hygienic needs.
“There is not enough water to clean or take a shower daily and we don’t have hygienic toilets,” said 26-year-old Masooma Darweshi.
It’s a struggle faced by parched settlements across much of the country.
International organizations warn that Afghans are suffering the climate disaster through water, with women being especially vulnerable.
Since the Taliban regime came to power and placed restrictions on women’s movement, education, and employment, it has been more difficult for women and girls to make the customarily longer excursions to fetch water.
In Afghan households, women are the major caregivers, taking care of the elderly, sick, and children in addition to doing household chores.
“Water is women’s business,” Shukria Attaye, a school teacher in a village above Darweshi’s, told AFP.
“Cooking, cleaning dishes, fetching water, washing clothes, taking care of the kids, bathing them — it’s all on women.”
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