Water

I feel like an old-time polar explorer reporting on the state of my
supplies. Sixth day without water. Can't cook, wash dishes, or flush
the toilet. Morale is low.

The irony is that we had a flood on my compound just a week ago. The
spigot had been leaking slowly for a few days, and we finally had a
plumber come take a look at it. The shut-off valve from the main
municipal pipe was broken, so this plumber guy says that he'll just
take off the broken spigot then force a new one on against the flow of
water out of the pipe. If only it had been that easy. Turns out that
the old faucet was leaking because its screw threads were totally
rusted out. Rusted, it turns out, onto the inside of the pipe. So the
plumber dude gets the old spigot off, but the new one can't go in
because of these little rusty bits of old spigot stuck in there. He
surveys the situation, and says "I need to go home for a part."
Meanwhile, there's a mini-fire hydrant's worth of water spewing out
into the compound. Tsehay and I tried to stem the flow with our hands,
with a stick, with a stick wrapped up in a plastic bad. Nothing worked
particularly well. The 9-year-old and I start bailing water into every
bucket on the compound (which, incidentally, is no small number), and
pouring water onto the trees and flowers when the buckets fill up.
Meanwhile two four-year-olds are reveling in the mud, splashing and
hooting about. Plumber guy eventually returns and smacks the rusty
bits ineffectually with a hammer. Water continues to pour. I'm
imagining at this point that it will NEVER stop running. But,
miraculously, he eventually gets the gunk out of the pipe and is able
to jam the new spigot on (with lots of splashing), and blissfully, the
tide stops. We were charged 30 birr (just under three dollars) for the
part, and 10 birr for labor, and thought that our water troubles were
over.

And no we've been without water for six days. One day is really no
trouble. You don't need to wash your dishes after a day. And there's
usually enough water stored up in various buckets or solar shower or
Nalgenes that you can get by for about a day. Day two is rougher. And
by a week, the situation is pretty miserable. We've been begging
jerry-cans of water from neighbors (who mysteriously get water back at
night, though we do not), and I hauled 12 liters of water in plastic
bottles from Kyle's house, but I can report that hauled water does not
go far when there are 5 people living on your compound. Rainy season
and guaranteed good water supply are three months away. Yikes.