A Water Problem

Water is a very precious commodity here. To conserve water in the compound, the sisters don’t turn on the water except to fill their tubs every few days. Because Kerry and I are sharing a room, we go through water a little faster than the rest of the sisters, who have single rooms. Every three days or so, the water gets turned on, and we place the giant, plastic tub under the shower head to get filled. We then use this water for flushing the toilet, brushing our teeth and bathing. It is so interesting how this makes a person conscious of how much water they are using.

Normally, when using the toilet, you flush after every use. But here, it would waste so much water, almost 2 gallons every time you flush! And when it rains only every two or three months during the dry season, you just don’t have the resources to flush that liberally. So Kerry and I have adopted the ‘flush only if there is something there to flush’ policy.

In order to flush though, it is not as simple as holding down the lever. Nothing is that simple here in Nigeria. You have to take the top off of the tank, and pour a bucket of water into the toilet, then flush!

Showering here is similar, and doesn’t involve an actual shower, but a bucket of cold water and a small bucket for scooping. It is wonderful how your body can train itself to need things. In America, people feel like they have to shower everyday, and wash their hair that often as well. Here, that would be a luxury that is not available. So I am not washing my hair more than every few days, and it looks decent. I am washing every night though, because people who knew me in India remember that my ‘tan’ after four months took several days of intense scrubbing to wash off… I am determined to not let that happen here! Cleanliness is my middle name!

But, as we are talking about water, calamity struck us on Tuesday night! We were told the sisters were going to ‘turn on the water’ so we could fill our buckets. So we got all ready, and we were really excited. Well, I was excited… Kerry might have just been humoring me… So we turned the tap and water started to fill our buckets. After a few minutes though, it turned from the steady pour to a slow trickle, and finally stopped. The water is out. They tried the lower tank, and that is gone too. Now the sisters have to go to town and buy a tanker of water, which can be very expensive.

I tried to figure out how much water we use here. Every few days the water gets turned on, and we put our big black bucket under the shower head to fill up. Kerry and I think that maybe we can get 20 gallons of water (that is probably over estimating too) into our bucket. And the water in that bucket will be used to flush the toilet, wash our hands, face, feet, brush our teeth, and wash our hair and bodies for about four or five days. That is insane, especially when we think about how much water we use at home! To flush the toilet at home takes about 2 gallons of water. So, the water that we use in five days here would only last for one day of toilet flushing back home. It is insane to think about really.

It reminded me of when I was younger, maybe fifth grade or something; there was this rumor that we were going to have to ship water from Lake Superior to Mexico, because they were running out of water. I don’t know if this was true, and it really doesn’t matter. But my reaction was ‘no’! I really thought that they must be wasting their water, because, how could you ‘run out of water’??? Now I understand, and I know what it feels like to conserve water, and really how lucky we are to have had such an abundance of water.