Yet 85% of families reported a broken borehole closer to their homestead than the water source they had resorted to using. Some reported as many as three broken boreholes in their immediate vicinities. Families reported spending from less than an hour, to more than four hours per day, collecting water. For some families, the simple task of collecting water takes the equivalent of half a working day. vi. Livestock  68% of families interviewed had NO cattle at all.  24% of families had NO goats.  Over the course of the last year, goat stocks have been depleted by around 17% among these families. This was a decrease from 184 to 153 goats owned in total.  24% of families did not own a single chicken.  Chicken stocks have been depleted by an astonishing 30% among these families since January, from 203 to 143 chickens.  62% of families had NO donkeys.  Donkeys have decreased in numbers by 21% since January from 52 to 41.  62% of families had neither a donkey nor cattle – which is significant, as these animals are relied upon for ploughing.  Only three families had sheep, and one family had a mother pig with piglets. Cattle were the only livestock whose numbers have remained fairly constant, but very few families own any cattle in the first place, with less than a third in this category. Out of 44 cattle owned in total among these families, 20 were owned by one individual, with the remaining families owning between 2 and 4 beasts each. Donkeys are very useful in the rural context, ploughing fields, pulling carts and carrying loads. The fact that there has been a one‐in‐five loss of donkeys in one year is disturbing, and this is attributed partly to disease in the area. The scarcity of both cattle and donkeys in these wards points to a poor likelihood of fields being ploughed ahead of the rains, which was confirmed by almost two thirds of families, who stated that they had no means of ploughing this year. The shortage of young adult labour in most families adds to this dilemma. Goats and chickens are particularly significant in rural families, as these are used for barter, for sales and occasionally to eat. The 30% loss of chickens and the almost 20% reduction in goats in the last nine months points to the pressure on families, who have had to resort to selling off or eating their livestock in order to survive. The fact that one in four of these families now no longer owns a single chicken is indicative of their desperate economic plight – it is almost unimaginable that a rural family can fail to have even one chicken. 28