For residents of Nueva Suyapa, water is a big deal. Water only comes to the colonia a few times per month, so when it does, you fill every available vessel to save it up. And when it rains, you store the rain water too. My friend and co-SALTer Elise wrote a post on her blog about how her family stores up water...they have a very elaborate system which even involves an old refrigerator that holds the H20.
In my house, we use our water carefully, but usually have confidence that the water will come when we need it. We have a large pila (cement sink/bathtub-sized fixture) that holds most of the water we need, a tank for the bathroom (only sink and toilet have running water. no shower :), 3 barrels of reserve water, and an assortment of old juice jugs and buckets as the back-up to the reserves. Typically, we go through the pila, the bathroom tank and by the time we just dip into the barrel, the water comes to our part of the colonia. When the water comes, you leave the faucet running and fill as much as you can!
I said that we trust the water will come, but this week has been a little tense. Not only were we out of drinking water (which has thankfully been remedied) but since Sunday the pila has been on 'E' and we are almost through all 3 barrels of reserves. My host mom said yesterday if the water doesn't come, we probably won't have enough to bathe. So of course that got my attention! This also means no washing of the clothes (by hand), and saving the bottled water for cooking. With 6 people in the house, its amazing to think how much water we use in a day--and that's using it conservatively!
So...you can pray the water comes soon. We would like to fill the pila...and I would like us to bathe. However, it is pretty chilly, so maybe I could start giving up my morning bucket shower.
In other water related stories, I got to see the Pacific coast of Honduras!
Although the water was salty, it was great to go to a warmer spot for a day and enjoy the beach with my coworkers. This was our office outing/Christmas party...rough, I know :)
We took a boat ride in the Gulf of Fonseca which is shared by Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Pretty awesome. Enjoy some of my favorite fotos from the day.
very thankful for water...potable and salty :)
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