By: Amanatullah Yusuf
It’s a hot afternoon at UDUS female hostel when yells and profanities were heard which prompted everyone to leave their rooms to find out the cause of the noise. It turned out that a fight has broken out between two dwellers at the hostel tap where everyone was struggling to get water before the water supply is cut off.
Apparently, the first sister and the second was arguing on who is next in line to fetch water and in the spur of the moment, they started yelling profanities, each promising proper beating to the other which was fulfilled when they pounced on each other and fought all the way from proper floor to the gutter with onlookers cheering them on to continue fighting. The fight ended with one of the sisters leaving the fight with a scratch on her nose and the other sister ended up fetching first. My own question is, what was the purpose of the fight?
That is not what we are here to talk about however, what we should mull over is what was the real cause of the fight; is it because one doesn’t want the other to fetch first? I don’t think so. The main cause is the limited supply of water and the fear of loosing the opportunity to fetch by letting another fetch first. This has been a normal occurrence where dwellers would be lined up waiting for their turn to fetch water only for the water supply to be cut off and they would be left with two options of waiting for the next couple of hours for the water to be brought back or walk all the way to the masjid reservoir to get water.
The unsteady supply of water in the school hostel has caused feuds between dwellers who are on line to fetch water. This is ranging from aggressive behaviour to verbal abuse. A behaviour which has prompted some dwellers to opt for fetching water from the reservoir in a bid to avoid the tap completely.
Do you think the fight was necessary and would it still occur if there is a steady supply of water