Water Woes

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” - Jacques Cousteau

Water is a necessity of life. This should not be news to you and shouldn’t be the first time you’ve heard someone say that or contemplated the statement. However, I personally did not realize how vital water is to my everyday life, in every facet, until I started living here. It’s easy to take notice of how often you use water throughout your day but it’s when you do not have any that you truly realize the serious relationship you are in with water. I quickly learned that water would be different here: we are seriously discouraged from drinking water from the tap because of the dangerous bacteria that lurk in the tubes, and when it rains brown water/mud comes out of the faucets (the dark brown color should not be confused with a mocha machine). But both of those facts are about the water when it’s on. Lately, we have been having a different series of problems.

We are in the DRY season. I might as well be living in the desert. Each river has turned into a little trickle of a stream (which is bad news for all the trash that people throw in there because there is no powerful current carrying it all away). Dust clouds are more common than white puffy clouds in the sky. All the plants along the road look like they are completely dead or someone came around and painted them brown over night because they are caked with the dirt that cars stir up when they drive past. I cannot take more than five steps outside of my house without getting dirt on my clothes (everything has a pretty brown hue to it now). I wash my feet the instant I get home every day because the dirt is deceiving me into thinking that I have a nice tan from being in the sun so often.

When it’s this dry out the town has to desperately conserve the little amount of water they have. They don’t impose restrictions like “only water your lawn every other day” or “wash your car on the odd days of this month,” and they certainly don’t give you a convenient warning to let you know when the restrictions will be enforced. Frequently the water is completely turned off in the middle of the day since most people are out and about and aren’t using too much water; then it’s turned back on in the afternoon or evening when everyone comes home and needs to use it. Usually this doesn’t actually affect me because I’m at school and the school runs on a different water supply line that rarely gets turned off. However, one day last week, I became victim to the nuisance of the water being shut off. We didn’t have water in our home for almost 24 hours. This means: no water to wash the dishes so we are forced to leave a mountain of dirty plates and pans on the counter that attract critters; no water to shower but thankfully Cassidy’s house had water so I wandered down there to clean myself up; and no water to flush the toilets which is probably the worst side effect because you are now afraid to drink water since you’ll have to pee frequently and you certainly wouldn’t dare poop because there is nowhere for that precious bomb to go. The smells that accumulated in our house were socially unacceptable.

Remember how I mentioned that the school’s water supply comes from a different source so we rarely have to worry about or deal with the water being turned off? We lost our luck last week. The school is hooked up to the water that the clinic uses so that is why there is hardly ever a problem with it because it is desperately needed and used in both places. Sadly, all good things must come to an end (a common theme in Honduras). One of the pipes or pumps broke in that particular water system which has ruined our (running) water supply for almost two weeks. We had to cancel the afternoon of classes on Tuesday because we didn’t have water and the town didn’t either so it would have been unsanitary for us to keep having school (aka using the restrooms). We were told the problem would be fixed immediately but it is still a work in progress. The solution? Bring giant barrels and tanks of water to the school, fill those up (from where? I have no idea), and use buckets. We call it “bucketing our business.” After you go to the bathroom you have to fill up the bucket and dump water into the bowl until it all gets flushed away. There are two things I hate about this system:  1) water splashes everywhere turning the seat into a twisted form of a slip-n-slide, and 2) sometimes when the barrels get low on water, the little kids can’t reach in there to get water out so they just don’t take care of what they just did in that toilet (I’ve decided I should get paid an extra 10 lemps for every toilet I have to bucket that isn’t mine). This just wasn’t in the job description when I decided to sign on.

The heat has been so unbearable that Lori and I decided to do something about it. We are sweating CONSTANTLY. My new style is dirt and sweat. Sounds yummy huh? I am sweating by the time I get to school every morning, I sweat all day at school and am often rolling up my pants or taking off my shirt (don’t worry, I have a tank top on underneath) every chance I get, I sweat just standing still, and I am drenched in that same sweat by the time I get home. Cold showers happen more than once a day for me and they have become my best friend. However, Lori and I wanted something new and exciting: an inflatable pool. We had been flirting with the idea for a while after we first saw some pools in San Pedro and Gracias, but when we saw one in a store in town, we knew what we had to do. We commandeered a student and his friend to come blow it up with an air compressor and then fill it using a hose (both things we did not own so that’s why we solicited help). The best location for our new investment is her back porch because it has the most privacy – it will keep people from gawking at our pale bodies wearing very little clothes and it will keep little kids from trashing it or leaving surprises for us in it. So far it has been the best purchase of our lives in La Unión.