The One When Everybody is Thirsty

I think I have created a few enemies in the past few days.
For a place that has such a high annual rainfall, we still have our dry spells… and we are going through one right now. When I started with this rainwater project, my thought was to put the new tanks at the homes furthest away from the school, at the houses that are a boat ride away. We already have two thousand gallon tanks installed at the school that are available to those living in the surrounding area, so it made perfect since to start with the homes that didn’t have reasonable and feasible access to this source… right?

When we installed the new tanks, I did some education with the happy new beneficiaries regarding how to manage their new water source. i.e.: “this water is to drink and cook, not for bathing or washing clothes.” I also made them a little booklet that reiterated this message using little pictures for the illiterate. After all this, I am happy to report that I think they get it! We have not had rain for about 2 weeks now, and they all report to still have water in their tanks.

Unfortunately, on my side of the community things are a little grimmer. Maybe I should have reconsidered my choice on tank placements. Sure the people on the other side of the community didn’t have any clean water source within walking distance, and babies were getting sick, and they were in dire need… but the people on my side of the community are my neighbors, and like it or not, I have to see them every day.

Since I have been here, I have only seen the two tanks at the school go completely dry twice and they have never remained dry for more than 2 days… until now. Apart from the tanks at the school, I have my own 55 gallon tank on my house. Which is not a lot considering I don’t have a pozo (shallow water source) like all of them do to bath and wash clothes. So, if we don’t have water for two days, I launch my water hoarding tactics. I start out pretty lax, Ex: I allow myself to shower but not wash my hair. Then each day that passes without rain, my hoarding becomes a little more intense, but I think I had yet to arrive to the point of obsession… until now. Below are a few examples of how I know that I have gotten to that point. Some may call me crazy or selfish and I am sure if I were to act this way back home, my family would feel the need for some sort of intervention. But here it is a different story, it is truly a matter of survival.

Things I do to conserve my water:
•I consciously peel my Oranges by hand instead of cutting them (which I normally do) so that I won’t have to wash the knife.
•I make one large one-pot meal in the morning and eat it all day to reduce on dishes
•I leave all the dirty dishes on my outdoor sink and hope that a bit of rain will sprinkle them clean overnight. If not I make use of the dew it has collected and wash them the next morning.
•I am afraid if I ever go out of site of my house, because there are water thieves around every corner
Note: No one in my community would ever or has ever stolen anything from my house. I would feel comfortable leaving it open for days or weeks at time, but there is no shame when it comes to steeling water. Right now, there is a large sign on my water tank that says ¨NO TOCA¨
•I struggle with the intense urge to itch my athletes feet because I know if I do so I will have to wash my hands…it is probably just as well I don’t scratch.
•I don’t hike, or exert myself to the point of requiring more water intake. •I don’t bathe…yeah.
•I can justify making tea in the morning but not coffee, because I am certain it just makes make thirsty.
•I have said flat out “No” to the following beggars:
- A 6 year old kid who came to my doorstep with an empty 5 ounce plastic cup.
- A group of teenage kids who just arrived from walking over an hour back from school in the hot sun.
-The women who needed water to cook lunch for the school children.

Wow, that last one really makes me sound like a bad person, but trust me, you would do the same. I give a lot of things to my community, but clean water from my own personal tank is definitely not one of them.

So… I am in town right now for a few hours. I just placed and order at the hardware store to purchase supplies to install another 1000 gallon tank on the new school house. From this one we will run tube some 700 feet to reach a cluster of six homes. The tank will be installed tomorrow and we will hopefully finish laying the tube by the end of the weekend, and then my god it better rain!!

I know I have mention that water is something we take for granted. But sometimes I feel like that is just a saying that people who travel to or live in third world or developing countries always say ¨we take such and such for granted.¨ So I hope that the above list has given you a better idea of really how lucky you are…. I mean, if you have an itch on your foot, you can scratch it =) There is tons of great water information and facts online. One of my favorite sources is National Geographic. The had a great water issue that came out a few months ago, that I always share with my community, to show them really how lucky they are that clean water just falls from the sky. This particular issue had a postersize spread in the middle that displayed how much water is consumed in the producton on different items....I still am struggling to try to explain to my community why 1,800 gallons ot water is used to produce a a pair of Jeans.

-Meti