Water and Sanitation

"Just breathe," I comforted myself as I shuffled slowly through the dusty gravel. "One breath with each step," I repeated raggedly as 50 pounds of brackish water sloshed rhythmically against the sides of the muddy yellow jerrycan strapped to my back.

Sweat rolled down my hairline, dropped from my forehead and splashed in a shape like raindrops on the gray slate beneath me. To keep from slipping, I tried to follow exactly in the footsteps of the cracked plastic sandals in front of me.

As the first rays of sunlight streak into Lake Victoria, Idi Otwoma and his two sons leave their village, pick up their nets and board their old wooden boat for the port of Kisumu.

The sales from his catch put bread on the table for his family of two wives, eight children and nine grandchildren.

But in the last few years, the seasoned fisherman has barely caught enough fish to feed his family. The catch is dwindling and this is becoming a tall order for Idi and his sons.

Kenyan farmers are troubled by their newest neighbors — elephants. A growing elephant population is destroying crops and creating violent confrontations. Jessica Partnow reports on a plan to reign in the pachyderms.

While reporting on water scarcity, Alex Stonehill and Sarah Stuteville met Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega who has been imprisoned multiple times under the country's restrictive press laws.

On a warm January afternoon in southern Ethiopia, thousands of ill-tempered livestock stand in groups with the pastoralists who have guided them for dozens of miles to drink. The animals dot an expansive field of Acacia trees, severed bits and pieces of dead grass and dust.

Earlier in the day thousands of young goats, sheep and calves took turns to have their fill of water. And the show will not end with the cattle; camels are still waiting in line. For being the best able to resist drought, now they will be last.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the scorched whitewash, shattered windows and collapsing skeletons of businesses in Kisumu's downtown was my father's furniture store in Seattle.

Poking through the remains of doctors' offices, electronics shops and grocery stores — plastic vials and discarded packaging cracking and rustling beneath my sneakers — I imagined the nights of heartbreak the owners of these business lived through in the anarchic weeks following Kenya's most recent elections.

Ethiopia has been a dominant force in long distance running for decades. Despite a shortage of training infrastructure, athletes have excelled thanks to hard work, the high altitudes in their home country and the purity of the ancient sport, where whoever runs the farthest and the fastest, wins. Alex Stonehill's photo slideshow offers a taste of training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Water is the new oil.

I’ve spent the last four months reporting stories on water from Ethiopia and Kenya, two countries at the forefront of the world’s coming water crisis. And while Western politicians and consumers fret over the declining economy and increasing oil prices, the news from East Africa is that with a growing majority of the world living on less than a dollar a day, the liquid that fuels bodies is becoming even more contentious than the liquid that fuels cars.

In Kenya's massive shanty town of Kibera, water is often unhealthy and far more expensive than in more affluent neighborhoods.

The scene is Kechene, Addis Ababa - one the poorest slums in Ethiopia. Mena Suvari, one of Hollywood's eminent stars, strides across a trench of sewage. She approaches a mud-walled shack where a woman is selling charcoal and heaps of green grass for the Sunday coffee ceremonies, which characterise this eastern Africa city.

One of the first pieces of advice I received before leaving on this reporting project was from an Ethiopian diplomat in the States who requested that I "not be a typical journalist" in my coverage of Africa. What he meant, and what he went on to say more specifically, was that he didn't want to see any more stories about African poverty in the news.

"Why don't you write about positive things, like investment opportunities," he suggested cheerfully as we toasted with Ethiopian honey wine in his spacious suburban home.

For women in Dillo, Ethiopia, fetching water is a daily ritual, but also a daily danger. Jessica Partnow and Alex Stonehill follow Fadi Jilo on her journey to a disease infested pool that her village relies on for water.