Skip to main content

Precious water

As I stare at my filthy feet and smell a slight... scent... coming from everyone, a friend asked about the water situation here.... I'll do my best to explain!

We live in a "mzungu house" with city water piped in.

Most local Acholi live in huts and go to the local borehole to get water each day - carrying a jerry can full of water back on their heads (do you know HOW heavy that is?! At least 40 pounds!) or they might rig a bicycle or a wheelbarrow up to carry more jerry cans. This is why you have children - to fetch the water! ;-P

Boreholes do not generally dry up - a borehole is a narrow shaft drilled deep enough to access under ground water supplies. These supplies are deep (sometimes a mile deep) and generally do not have problems during a typical dry season here.

On the other hand, city water comes from a reservoir on the surface (it may come from other places too, I don't claim to be an expert on this!). My laundry dries within an hour in this dry dry heat, so you can imagine that with no rain to replenish the supply for months on end, the supply dries up.

Our house has a pretty big tank (enough to do one shower, toilet flushes, two loads of laundry, and a sink full of dishes - as I found out this week) and so as long as the water comes on from the city at some point for long enough, our tank fills up and we have water in most of the house.

Lately, the water hasn't been coming on at all... meaning, I drained the tank trying to keep the house and clothes clean last week and we're down to sponge baths, using dirty water to mop the floor, and... going to the borehole. Praise God for boreholes!

So, today we need to take a trip to Home of Love to fill our jerry cans and make those last. No more "pool days" (water play in bins) for a while. No nice hot showers for a while. And the laundry... yikes - disposable diaper days? :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Family of Three!

We are in Liberia - the electricity goes in and out because the generator is having trouble keeping up these days! So hopefully it will stay on long enough to post and the internet connection will allow me this luxury! We were united with precious Gracie on Thanksgiving day - I will write more about this later. But, oh! is Gracie a joy! She is so beautiful, so joyfilled, and a bit mischievious. Her physical limitations do not permit her to accomplish much mischief, but we can tell that she is trying to push some limits already. If we were not in love with her already, she is irresitable and such a treasure and blessing from God. In our two days together, she has not cried once. She spends most of her days smiling, she loves to snuggle (good match for us!), and has the most contagious laugh! Life takes more effort for her - her cerebral palsy is moderate and every activity is a challenge and is clearly tiring for her. Meal times (which she loves) take a long time and much patience and d...
6 comments
Read more

New Stage of Life

Gracie has entered a new developmental stage. She now is active and has been rolling all over the floor. We cleared out a little living room so that she would have room to roll around - she's rolling front to back, both directions. She also has been much easier to get up on all fours - it used to take 3-4 adults to cram her into the crawling position due to her resistance. She now even spontaneously gets into a semi-crawling position on her own. In the crawling position she's been weight bearing even on her right arm (but always in combination with her left arm). She also has been rocking a little in the crawling position as if she gets it that this is a way that you can move! It's been so exciting. But it also makes her much more eager to be down with other kids and moving around. She's in a very active active stage, always moving, and wanting to move. She's also taken, not just a huge interest in other kids, but also interest in toys a bit more. She's so fun!
4 comments
Read more

The Foolishness of God's Calling

A friend shared with me how "strange" (and scary) our decisions appear to those observing our lives. Most people are barely surviving residency and then for me to decide to adopt, to decide to adopt a child with special needs, to decide to adopt this child from the uncertainty of Liberia, to decide to start my Master's of Public Health during residency... it all seems crazy and overwhelming to the observer. But what my friend did not take into account is that God's calling on our lives will not always appear sane. Our choices are neither noble nor insane if they are what God has called us to. These choices are simply obedience to sovereign God! We are not living for life in this world, we are in fact aliens to this world and shouldn't settle down and get too comfortable because our joy is in heaven. God calls each of us to "not waste our lives" but live each day with an eternal focus. With an eternal focus, we should not only adopt a child with disabil...
4 comments
Read more