Water? We Don`t Need No Stinkin’ Water!
Posted on March 14, 2009 - Filed Under Guatemala, Simple Life | 6 Comments
I`ve been inspired by Mark over at GuateLiving (btw, you should go take his poll, he’s trying to beat his record of participants . . . which I think is like three people) to talk a bit more about what daily life is like here. I sometimes forget that what is now normal for me is still bizarre for those not actually living the expat life!
One of the things that you tend to take for granted in the Western world is water. And electricity. I mean, you pretty much assume that when you turn on the tap in your house, water will come out, right? Not so here.
Yesterday, for example, the water was off from noon until 5:15. Which was a bit of a pain because we forgot to order a new garifun (5 gallon bottle of drinking water), so we had like an inch of water to survive the afternoon with. On the plus side, it gave me an excuse not to do dishes!
Water is something that just can`t be taken for granted here. Particularly in San Juan. Up until last year, the dry season was literally the dry season. Once the torrential rains stopped, announcements were made in the town square as to when water would be available. It would start off being turned off between 10 pm and 6 am. Not such a biggie. Then as the dry season progressed and there was less and less water in the tanks, the times would narrow until finally they would ONLY turn the water on between 1 am and 3 am. You know, because no one is UP at that time. Except if you`re a mom who is washing cloth diapers, you get up at 1 am in hopes they remembered that this is when the water is supposed to be on and you scrubbed dirty diapers in the dark. And filled up as many containers as you could.
Then it would go to alternating days. One day the upper half of San Juan would get water for those two hours in the early morning, then the next day, the lower half. There is a finca just above the town that has a really great well and they provide water to the public pilas here, so you would see women scrubbing clothes in the public pilas, filling jugs with water and carrying them home on their heads. But if things got too dry, then the finca would shut off even the public pila water, leaving everyone high and dry (but I don`t blame them, those coffee bushes need a lot of water!).
Unfortunately, the water situation got so bad that we ended up not having any water at all for days on end. The longest stretch was 10 days, then water for 3 hours, then another 7 days of nothing. And Dorian was in cloth diapers for his colostomy at that point. I actually considered rounding up a group of mothers from the town, having them each donate one stinky cloth diaper and then dropping the huge disgusting pile off in the water department office. Just to give them a clue.
Finally, the powers that be decided that maybe 10 days without water just wasn`t very acceptable, so they built a new well in between the upper and lower halves of the town and we now have water during the dry season. Most of the time.
This probably sounds weird, but I`ve gotten used to these drops in H2O and while it`s annoying, we usually have the pila full. Before Dorian could walk, I also filled up tubs of water and had them outside waiting to wash things and bathe with. Now, I`m too paranoid to leave open tubs of water for my boys to drown in . . . I`m pretty sure Dante would make that his life`s mission, to tumble headfirst into one of them! And yesterday, the pila was full of concrete and lime, so it wasn`t really that great for washing stuff. Whoops.
Once the bathroom is finished, we plan to put a tank of water on top of the bathroom, so we`ll still have running water, no matter what. Then we`ll be one of the elite. 
Comments
6 Responses to “Water? We Don`t Need No Stinkin’ Water!”
Talk to Me, People!
Clean water is truly a luxury!
And I thought we had it tough when the water was out for 8 hours a day one week!
Oh.my.gosh. TEN DAYS without water? Are you kidding me? I can’t imagine. You are one adventurous lady to have decided to live there!
Jessie, let`s just say I was ready to move after Day 5. Except we had NO money at that point. And I had no idea about the water situation when I followed Irving up the volcano!!
Hello guys,
Well here is a little bit of info our great Western infrastructures tend NOT TO TELL US. Put it this way, I much rather wait those 10 days to continue drinking and or using our fluoride in our water both in the States and in Canada. I’ll let you do your own homework and see what these “small” amounts of fluoride will do to your body over time.
What’s the POINT: Funny that the so called “Westernize” countries tend to do the most harm to our bodies.
This from Newsweek: Americans get 3-4 times more vaccines that any other country, wonder why?
Genesis, be great full of where both you and your 2 boys are being raised, YOUR ONE LUCKY ONE….
take care guys.
[...] If you live in real Guate, you can experience frequent outages. Expat Mom detailed some experiences in an old post here. [...]