My week at a glance

It's almost Friday, and thank goodness. I am exhausted. It has been a really busy week. Between teaching, my Malaria Awareness Club, library and other projects at school, I just feel like I am running on empty. When I get home in the afternoons I just want to drink a liter of water and go right to sleep.

Unfortunately, that isn't usually an option. I only have around three hours after I get home before dark, and in that time I need to cook, clean up, bathe and lesson plan for the next day. It's usually not enough time and I often end up lesson planning by flashlight in my mosquito net.

I've had a little extra work cleaning up this week too. Besides the additional lizard droppings that come this time of year thanks to the increased activity of my gecko housemates, I've discovered that I have mice. And they also poop a lot. And knock things over in the middle of the night, little buggers. They left this little trail in my makeshift sink:

Plus it has been really windy, which sends a ton of leaves and other plant debris through the gaps in my roof and into my house.

On Sunday I noticed the nest of black ants in my yard had been disturbed, and they decided to move the colony.

I fought to keep them away from the house, and suffered a few ant bites in the process. In the end they moved under the drain. Hopefully they are just outdoor ants and don't find my house inviting. Honestly it is cooler outside anyway.

Oh yeah, it's really hot too. I'm drinking a lot of water these days, although drinking lukewarm water on a hot day isn't really that satisfying. Luckily I have had water almost everyday this week. I can't say the same thing for the power, which goes out almost everyday now. I give thanks everytime I can charge my phone or there is water in the pipe outside, that's for sure.

Well, I'm off. I'm going to go dunk my washcloth in some more water and then drape it over me so I can cool off enough to try and sleep.

Enjoy your cool Fall weather back Home. I miss it!

Madzi Alipo!

I've got water!

When I got home from school today I checked the tap, and there was water! Sweet, cool water. So I spent the next 20 minutes or so filling all my buckets. Now I have water to bathe, cook, wash clothes, wash dishes and drink for days! I might go buy sweet potatoes again because now I have enough water to boil them without worrying about all the wasted water.

I don't know if this is a temporary water-abundance or not, so I am going to stay in water-conserving mode, at least for a while. But it's nice to be able to take a real bucket bath again, and I'm looking forward to wearing clean clothes.

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!

And then the rains came

Rainy season is in full swing here. Maybe it's just because we have been having a drought in California for the past few years, but the rain here is like nothing I have seen before. It just doesn't stop. I think it has rained everyday this month. These aren't just showers either. There have been serious downpours.

I have had no water since Saturday morning, so I've been collecting rainwater to use instead. The buckets fill up pretty fast, so now I'm set probably for the next week or so.

The great thing about using rainwater is it is clean. No risk of cholera or other water-borne parasites like you usually get from groundwater this time of year with the high water table. Still, I'm boiling and filtering it all before I drink it, just to be safe.

The rain is bringing out more creatures too. Check out this pretty snail. Note: this guy was as big as my hand!

There are some drawbacks to all this rain though. Like walking through brown water up to my ankles to get to school. Clothes that take days to dry. Power that goes out everyday. Rain pounding on the tin roof when I am trying to teach. Oh yeah, and this:

That used to be the brick wall behind my house. They only used mud to hold the bricks together for the wall, and the soil has a lot of sand here, so the wall has been collapsing as it gets soaked. That photo was from yesterday. More fell down last night. Luckily the bricks from the house were cemented together properly so it seems okay so far. There are some growing wet spots in the walls that I am monitoring, and I have plates on the floor to catch all the leaks.

In that photo, the back left corner is the latrine. I had to climb over that pile of bricks to reach the chim this morning. Have you ever used an umbrella to walk to the bathroom? And then almost slipped in the mud with your flip-flops? I have!