Water, Water (Sometimes) Everywhere

Jess writes:

Today is a water day – that is, the day when the outside water taps are turned on in Schoemansdal – and, due to my new obsession with everything water (think previous site, without water…gr.) I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog post to the activities that revolve around our water usage. Boring, you say? Well, you might be surprised… or at least thankful for the water that we all have across the pond!!

As it turns out (but nevertheless unsurprisingly) we take for granted the many ways in which we use running water in the U.S. – the pure ease of turning a handle and having hot or cold water at your fingertips – who would have thought it a luxury?!? Well, of course, a bout of service in Africa (or most other places in the developing world) will quickly change your opinion! And now, I can honestly say, I will never take that glorious, running liquid for granted again (much the same with flush toilets, washing machines, and real cold soda!! Ah!)

Water days in Schoemansdal are once every three days (thank god!!) – meaning that, the water taps in the yard (we have one primary and one secondary tap in our yard), come on as such: Monday on, Tuesday & Wednesday off, Thursday on, Friday & Saturday off, Sunday on… etc. And while we are not the luckiest of South African PCVs (some have water on everyday!) we are certainly better off than many (again, think ourselves, at the previous site)!! But since water is such a daily necessity, every PCV develops his or her own system for ensuring that some water is available on the majority of days when the town water is shut off. Thus, on those eventful water days, we take at least a half-day off from work because our focus shifts to hoarding and our schedules are booked with running from the house, to the tap, and back again, with many sorts of water collection containers and water-heavy activities. Take a look:

First, when the water comes on around 8:00am, we get right to the most important item on the water collection list: filling up the reserve containers & restocking our drinking water. As for the reserve containers, we have two, very large buckets (about 5 gallon) that are stored in our kitchen and kept as close to overflowing as possible – this will serve as all the useful water for the following two days. As for drinking water, we have 3 large-handled water jugs (5 litres exactly), 2 metal canteens, and no less than 4 portable water bottles that we fill with ‘clean’ water. To get the water ‘clean’, of course, we have to at least filter the water (we will sometimes still boil the water before filtering, depending on the quality of the water, but usually our taps run often enough to skip this part). Filtering, cup by cup, to fill the 3 large jugs, 2 canteens, and 4 water bottles can take over an hour, with other chores interspersed.

Next, around 9:00am, we move to the chores that require a lot of running water (and time) – namely, laundry and cleaning. For laundry, we fill our “bath bucket” (one of two black buckets, a little less than 5 gallons) halfway with water and some powdered soap and we fill our “bath basin” (a huge, elongated, plastic tub) halfway with water and fabric softener (the whole “bath” part will make sense in a bit… by the way). We then proceed to launder: plunging the clothes in the “bath bucket” with a laundry plunger, or just our hands, and rinsing the clothes in the “bath basin”. A typical load of laundry requires 4-5 changes of soap-water in the “bath bucket” and at least one change of softener-water in the “bath basin”, hence the need to do laundry on water days. Laundry will take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, depending on the size and will require the rest of the day to dry, hence the need to do it earlier in the morning.

Cleaning, as mentioned above, also requires a lot of water, primarily because everything can get so dirty in the process – i.e., dust rags, the broom, ourselves, etc. And if mopping (which we rarely do, because we both hate it!) we obviously need a lot of water for the mop bucket, which is its own, separate bucket stored in the kitchen with the cleaning supplies. If nothing else, we at least pour a bucket of Jayes fluid down the pit latrine for sanitation sake. Jayes fluid is basically a super disinfectant that you mix with water to keep the pit latrine from getting too smelly or, worse yet, actually unhealthy. But since Jayes fluid is such a harsh chemical, we can’t use any of our reserve, wash or bath buckets for the mixing, so we revert to the mop bucket in most cases.

After laundry and cleaning, we move to the less water-heavy but equally important water-needy chores:

First, there’s washing the dishes, which requires us to fill our hotpot (electric tea kettle) to the top for hot water and to fill our two dish basins part-way with soap-water and clean-water for washing and rinsing. Once the dishes are done for the day, we’ll usually refill the hotpot and two dish basins with water again in preparation for the next round of dishes that night or the following morning (so that we don’t use up our reserve water).

Then, there’s the water needed for cooking. Since we can’t fill every pot and pan in the house with water, in anticipation of needing it later, we will fill our “kitchen bucket” (the other of the two black buckets, a little less than 5 gallons) and store it under the kitchen table.

Next, there’s the elusive bathwater… remember that “bath bucket” and “bath basin”? We will fill the “bath bucket” nearly to the top, with enough room to add some hot water, and bring in the now-empty “bath basin” to stand in for our ‘shower’ (and of course by ‘shower’ I mean pouring water over our head with a plastic cup from the bucket while standing in our basin). And for the hot water, I’ll fill at least one large cooking pot to be heated right before starting. Together, Adam and I use just slightly more than the one black bucket for our two ‘showers’, so if we shower early enough in the day, we can even refill the “bath bucket” for the next day before the water is shut off (so we don’t have to use the reserve water from the blue buckets).

Finally, around mid-day, we will have all buckets filled, all drinking jugs topped off, all canteens and water bottles chilling in the fridge, all clothes & dishes clean (our own bodies soon to be clean too – ah!), and hopefully, enough water collected to last the 48-hours… because the taps dry-up around 4:00pm. Such a sad, sad sight: a tap dripping slower and slower until it… stops. Goodbye water. See you in a few days.

So there you have it! The whole water routine and my reason for being water-obsessive (its understandable now, right?)!! Okay, gotta run… it is water day after all!!