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Bajo ‘water tribe’ choked by water crisis
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Several members of the Bajo tribe, the nation's last sea gypsies, leave the Torosiaje village on boat in Gorontalo, South Sulawesi, on Sept. 13. (JP/Syamsul Huda M. Suhari)
T
he world might know them as "sea gypsies" for living on sea, half-a-kilometer from the nearest coastline for centuries. But little might people know that the Bajo tribe, locally dubbed as the water tribe, currently are being choked by a water crisis.
The unique tribe and its village have become a tourist destination that has attracted thousands of local and foreign visitors. However, freshwater scarcity ironically has been troubling the 1,490 people living in Torosiaje village, Gorontalo, Southeast Sulawesi, for months.
The local administration actually had installed water piping last year, but the pipes continue to be clogged on a daily basis, forcing people to buy fresh water from the nearby village onshore for Rp 10,000 (76 US cents) per drum.
“The water supply is more frequently clogged than normal. To save water, here the people take a bath and wash their clothes with seawater and use freshwater to rinse afterwards,” said Jekson Sompah, the Torosiaje village chief, to The Jakarta Post recently.
Responding to the report, Pohuwato regency-owned water company (PDAM) head Hairudin Usman said frequent power outages by state-owned electricity firm PLN in the region disrupted the water supply to the Bajo tribe’s village.
“I’m not trying to shift the blame but they are the facts,” he said, adding that the electricity-generated pumps were crucial as gravity and pressure-based plumbing were not capable of supplying isolated villages such as Torosiaje. (ags)
