The last three days we haven't had any water. The house we are staying at is older so doesn't have a water tank. Houses in Rwanda are currently required to have one, so that if water runs out you at least get a few days of stored water usage. The people here in this house have stored up drums of water inside their house. When we first arrived we had water and I thought the drums were excessive. Turns out that I'm wrong (big surprise there). Day two of no water and we had gone through all the drums and jerri cans of stored water. We took two big drums down to a local filling station and paid about a dollar to get them filled. No big deal really, just another inconvenience. The kids have to shower daily. The dust is superflous esp at the end of dry season. It sticks to you and when we shower the kids there is brown water running off of them. You try to flush the toilet less, you try to conserve by doing dishes less. It's an interesting balance.
Kimi left the taps on one night and got up when he heard the water running at midnight. He spent two hours filling all the containers. This morning we had water. It rained a ton last night. As I'm typing this the water is again turned off. It's an interesting way to live and has made me thankful for the basics.
What I'm thankful for today:
Rain! the dust is settled
What is hard about today:
I'm worried about getting into our house on time. Time moves slowly and we need furniture
water is impossible to live without. electricity is annoying to have to live without. Our water situation was horrible from the moment we got here last year. the pump that pumps water from the lower tanks to the upper died the day we got to our house and then the city's transformer at the dam died and they of course didn't have the money to fix it. so we had a new water pump and no water to pump for 3 months. I told Chris "it's a good thing we both grew up here - this just might send a westerner who's never been to Nigeria over the edge". He would bring home 12 1.5 litre bottles of water from the school campus each day. It was a good lesson in water conservancy...this year -well at least til december we're on the school campus and they have their own bore hole - yay!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletewater is impossible to live without. electricity is annoying to have to live without. Our water situation was horrible from the moment we got here last year. the pump that pumps water from the lower tanks to the upper died the day we got to our house and then the city's transformer at the dam died and they of course didn't have the money to fix it. so we had a new water pump and no water to pump for 3 months. I told Chris "it's a good thing we both grew up here - this just might send a westerner who's never been to Nigeria over the edge". He would bring home 12 1.5 litre bottles of water from the school campus each day. It was a good lesson in water conservancy...this year -well at least til december we're on the school campus and they have their own bore hole - yay!!!!!!!!!!
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