Water, Precious Water
Collecting, storing,
rationing, using, … all became an obsession for me during the drought. It was
so depressing, first to see the long lines of villagers scavenging for meager
drops of water at broken water lines, creeks, or dripping taps, and the wasting
of the livestock; and then second for me to have to manage this precious
resource for myself. There have been
reports of quite of few villagers getting sick from poor quality water, even a
death in my neighborhood.
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| Peace Corps delivering much needed barrel of water |
Some PCVs in the
neighborhood have not had water from their taps since September. A few other
PCVs were actually moved to a new home in a different location entirely when
their water source completely became unavailable. I consider myself fortunate as I had some
water, usually for an hour 1-2 times a week through November. But, in December
& most of January, I had no water from my tap at all. That creates a
particularly bad situation because I have a flush toilet and no (water-free)
outhouse. I just knew that whenever I could find water I should fill up every
container possible
So, life without
water, what's that like? Or… Just how many buckets can I fill?
I admit to myself
that I am a Cost-Co consumer. I rely on the certainty of a never ending supply
of toilet paper and countless "soft sheets" for the dryer, as well as
the comfort that an extra-large bottle of olive oil provides.
Just how many
buckets & containers do I have…
3 extra large
2 medium
4 medium small*
1 small
1 tub for the mop*
2 wash basins*
3 kitchen pots
3 water jugs,
5-liter
1 large canister
supplied by PC for filtering boiled water for drinking
1 very large barrel
supplied by PC
1 extra barrel
supplied by PC that was intended for another PCV but not needed
*without lids
And did I ever run
out? Absolutely!
In spite of trying
my best to conserve & reuse every drop of water, after a couple weeks
without any water from the tap, I ran out. Flushing the toilet once a day is
the biggest water hog - My new source of water became the tap from the borehole
at St. Camillus Centre. While Sr. Juliana had her truck she could have the kids
collect the water & load the buckets on her truck to bring back to me. Once
the truck was out for repairs I had to hire a driver (about $8 USD) to make the
round trip to haul water for me from the Centre.
Life with limited
water:
- Drinking: take water only from a good source like a tap, boil & filter always
- Cooking: don't bother, get food that does not need to be cooked & use the minimum of pans & utensils
- Laundry: don't bother; wear t-shirts 2-3x & pants even longer (use up my full supply of undies until water comes)
- Showering: go to the hotel in town or to the Centre where they have the borehole
- Toilets: eeeewwww, no more than once a day, light incense when needed, burn all possible tissue
- Vegetable garden: use gray water from dishes as long as the taps supply at least some water, then stop watering
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| Queuing up for limited water - Mohale's Hoek |
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Queuing up for water from broken drain pipe - Mafeteng |
And then the rain came!
The first heavy rain
near the end of the month was like a miracle. Not even forecast, a huge rain
came! Water poured across the field next to my house, flooded my yard, &
poured into the next field downhill. I gathered up every empty bucket & container
and put them outside to catch the rain. Every time one filled I dumped the
water in a huge empty PC barrel and was to fill every available container &
the toilets. I rushed to do laundry, shower, & wash my hair using the rain
water so I could refill the buckets! The
safe tap water, reserved for boiling & filtering, remained in just a couple
containers as I would not drink rain water, especially that which I captured
from under the eaves.
Off & on for a
week of so the rain came intermittently. My tap water came back on as the
source reservoir began to fill. The rivers began to flow & I could see
waterfalls from the mountains nearby. My few squash plants flourished &
grew huge & the fields turned green. If only it would
last.
