Villagers in Ningxia needn't go out to fetch water－it comes to them

1.1 million residents in the region have access to it, thanks to investment of 4 billion yuan and intelligent management

Editor's note: With China set to meet its goal this year of eliminating extreme poverty before next year's 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, this series looks at the efforts of different areas of the country to erase poverty and improve livelihoods.

Every time Zhou Shidong sees his cistern, bitter memories come flooding back.

Zhou, a farmer from Baoshan village in Pengyang, a county in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, got up before dawn and walked more than two hours to fetch water from creeks in the mountains.

Access to water was the focus of village life. The first daily chore was to direct donkeys to creeks and rivers and haul back water that was then stored in underground cisterns.

"The dirt road is winding and twisted. We used our donkeys to carry water buckets," said Zhou, whose home stands on the hillside.

It was more painstaking to get water in winter when streams and rivers froze over.

"We tried hard to get ice from the streams and took the ice home," Zhou said.

Like other farmers in the village, Zhou stored water or ice from the rivers in his cistern.

"The muddy water was not drinkable. We had to wait for a long time－water got clear after sand sank at the bottom of the cistern. It tasted terrible, but we had no choice," Zhou, 55, said.

"When we washed face at that time, we moistened a towel with the water in a bowl. Water was so precious that we did not want to waste a drop," Zhou said. "Taking a shower was impossible."

Now using an app on his cellphone, Zhou can purchase tap water for his family and livestock.

"The days that we fetched water from faraway creeks and rivers are gone," Zhou said. But he has kept his cistern to store rainwater, which he is using to water his vegetables.

When tap water was available in Baoshan village in 2016, Zhou bought a washing machine and had a water heater installed.

"We can have a hot shower now," Zhou said.

Pengyang sits in the Xihaigu area, which is a parched region of dry, rolling hills in southern Ningxia.