The disturbing images from upcountry now are of students struggling for muddy water with animals from drying up ponds. Students trek four kilometres to fetch water in 20-litre jerrycans when they should be in school.
Unless it rains in March, Kotonje Secondary School, Kanyamfwa Secondary School, and Kalaro Secondary School, in Midwest Karachuonyo will close. In 30 days of dust, and heat, which rises 11 degree centigrade above 20, the climatic average, Kobondo water pan will dry up. This is the only source of water here for schools and a community of 38,000 people.
Frail women, famished children, elderly men, cattle, donkeys, goats, and sheep crowd at the raw water pan for the daily struggle for water. Citizens are paying the price of bastardised planning.
Were there a public choice of water, laptops, and electricity, the unanimous pick would be water. But the national government is hyping power connections in rural areas, where water is the priority. Meanwhile, some devolved governments are supplying filters to schools without water.
Cities, too, are not spared the water challenge. Unless the 'long' rains come, late March or April, Nairobi taps could run dry. Meanwhile, Eastlands is down to a spittle of irregular, twice-a-week water rationing schedule.
Nairobi, whose water reservoirs - Sasumua, Kikuyu Springs, Ruiru, Ngethu Water Works, Thika Dam - under the management of Athi Water Services Board, blames the scarcity on long dry spells in the Central highlands.
Nairobi's water storage was planned for 500,000 people, but with a population of four million, the crisis is here on invitation.
Eastlands' estates, including Buruburu, Doonholm, and Umoja, have been on a rationing schedule of taps running twice a week for a decade now. This schedule has been disrupted, with Eastlanders buying water from vendors at Sh20 for a 19-litre jerrycan. The monthly bills are rising, but the supply is dwindling.
Last month, Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company reported a daily supply of 505,000 cubic metres of water, against a daily demand of 760,000 cubic metres.
Cape Town marked April 1 as its 'Day Zero', when water supplies to private homes would be cut. From then on, consumers would queue for rations. Cape Town's 'DZ' has been revised to May 11. There were some rain last Friday, after three years of drought in Western Cape.
The South African city, built on the plains of the Table Mountains, will run out of drinking water in 75 days unless it rains. The city, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet, has no desalination plants and plans. Climate change is a good excuse for Cape Town's zero-water moment.
Accra, a coastal town, and capital of Ghana, is also grappling with water insecurity. There are no plans to desalinate Atlantic Ocean water for domestic use.
São Paulo, one of 10 most populated cities in the world, suffered the Cape Town experience in 2015, when its main water reservoir fell below four per cent capacity. During the crisis, the Brazilian city of 21.7 million people had less than 20 days of water. The police had to escort water trucks to stop looting.
A drought in south eastern Brazil was a good excuse, but a United Nations mission on the crisis faulted the State for "lack of proper planning and investments", BBC reported last Friday.
The development singsong of the last three decades of the 20th century was that there would be tapped water in every home by the year 2000. Two decades into the millennium, the water situation is worse than it was 55 years ago.
Millennium Development Goals promised access to safe water by 2015. Two years later, 60 per cent of Kenyans suffer water insecurity. Nairobi, the hub of the national economy, the city of power and planning, knows this contradiction.
Climate change strains water sources. But the scarcity has a lot more to do with shoddy planning, corruption, skewed priorities, and crazy management of water resources. Water is life and the priority should be protection of life.