Spottily, the 10 households also get water from another neighbor, Jeanine Watson, who dug a temporary well in her yard after Martin's first well ran dry. Atop her 100-foot well is a 10-foot water storage tank insulated by fiberglass and electrician's tape.

"When you look at the fact that everybody else around us has running water, what is happening makes no sense," says Watson, a nurse. Meanwhile, retiree Martin says, he and his neighbors will remain resolute and make do.

Until Drew-Ruleville Rd. gets a real water system: duct tape and hope.

"The people came out last week and drilled for three days, and they wasn't making no progress," he says. "They drilled down about 200 feet until they got to rockbed. They said they sometimes run into problems like that. They said they would come out again in two weeks and try it again."

Katti Gray is a New York-based freelancer. Gray writes for Newsday, Jet, Essence, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, Daily Yonder and other news outlets.

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