Mohamed gave up farming because of successive droughts that have hit his previously fertile but isolated village in Morocco and because he just couldn't bear it any longer.
"To see villagers rush to public fountains in the morning or to a neighbour to get water makes you want to cry," the man in his 60s said.
"The water shortage is making us suffer," he told AFP in Ouled Essi Masseoud village, around 140 kilometres (87 miles) from the country's economic capital Casablanca.
But it is not just his village that is suffering—all of the North African country has been hit.
No longer having access to potable running water, the villagers of Ouled Essi Masseoud rely solely on sporadic supplies in public fountains and from private wells.
"The fountains work just one or two days a week, the wells are starting to dry up and the river next to it is drying up more and more," said Mohamed Sbai as he went to fetch water from neighbours.
The situation is critical, given the village's position in the agricultural province of Settat, near the Oum Errabia River and the Al Massira Dam, Morocco's second largest.
Its reservoir supplies drinking water to several cities, including the three million people who live in Casablanca. But latest official figures show it is now filling at a rate of just five percent.
Al Massira reservoir has been reduced to little more than a pond bordered by kilometres of cracked earth.
With no access to potable running water, the villagers of Ouled Essi Masseoud rely on public fountains and private wells.