Madzi kulibe

I've been saying that phrase a lot lately-- no water. I get all my water from an outside tap. It's really convenient, except when it goes dry. Which happens a lot, especially lately.

Not even one drop

This is Dry Season, so we're not really expecting rain. But after the floods in January, we received very low levels of rainfall during the remainder of the season. So now water levels are low. Bonus-- the low water levels are also affecting power generation from the dams, so there are more power outages lately. Like right now, in fact.

For the last five days I have only been able to get about 2-3 liters of water each day. (A liter is about a quart). That is just enough for cooking and drinking. Luckily I had a small stockpile, but it's dwindling. Of course drinking water and cooking take priority. But for everything else, I need to make some hard choices.  And get creative.

I've skipped bathing a couple times, I've got my dishwashing down to once a day with only about two liters of water, and I'm postponing laundry until further notice (except for a few items which I managed to wash and rinse in about a four liters of water.) And forget about mopping. That is on the very bottom of my water priority list. Tomorrow I am going to try using the leftover cooking water from my sweet potatoes to make my porridge. Every little bit counts when your tap is dry.

Sadly, my garden is pretty much finished until Rainy Season, since I don't have enough excess water to keep it going. I uprooted my dead onions this evening and added them to my makeshift compost pile which I started in one of the now empty beds. There are a few potatoes and carrots left to harvest, but that is pretty much it.

I do have an alternate water source. There is a borehole about fifteen minutes away, which isn't bad except it feels a lot farther when I am carrying a bucket of water on my head. Which is definitely worth it for drinking water, but I don't wanna think about how many trips I would need to get enough water for everything else. It's much easier to just conserve my limited water a little bit longer. Still, if I need to, I could do it. And I'm sure my neighbors would take pity on me and help me out. But they would have a good laugh at the azungu carrying water on her head first!