Collecting water from the village well.

The well is the centre of the village life and lots of people meet there. It gives water for the people to drink, to wash with, for cooking, for cleaning and for watering the fields.

Washing in water from the village well.

Not long ago the wells were open and people and animals could just walk right into them. This made them very dirty and made the people poorly because of the germs. Now most wells have a cover and this has made the number of diseases go down. Lots of the modern wells have electric pumps to lift the water up.