Water Issues

Our host family in Limpopo had running water and a bathtub, which was awesome. They didn’t have hot water though, so we had to warm up water on the stove for bathing. This meant that you ultimately only had a couple of inches of water in the tub (unless you wanted a freezing cold bath), but at least it wasn’t a bucket. The problem was that the water was often “out.” They were at the end of the village water line. Thus, when the tank “on the mountain” was low, there wasn’t enough water to reach our house. Luckily, they had a few large storage containers outside, and there was a tank down the road where Uncle Jacob would lug empty buckets in his wheelbarrow to get more water. When it rained, the water in the mountain tank would rise, and we would have running water again in the house. So although it sucks walking on muddy roads, we were constantly hoping for rain. It didn’t come often.

Despite the lack of a bathtub, it was nice having a constant supply of running water here in the Eastern Cape. That is, it was nice until last week when the water stopped. Luckily, it was only off sporadically for a couple of days. It was off again for several hours again this week, but it has been fine since then. This is much better than the days (and even weeks) we’d go without running water in Limpopo. However, the problem is that we don’t have water in storage here or an outhouse, so we are not equipped to deal with water shortages. You may think you’d never hope for an outhouse, but you begin to question yourself when you’re not sure when your water will come back on. We may have, additionally, gone an extra day (or two) beyond decent cleanliness last week without bathing due to the water shortage. It happens.

The other major difference compared to Limpopo is that here in the Eastern Cape it rains. A LOT. In fact, today is the fourth day in a row of rain. We are supposed to be moving out of the rainy warm season into the dry cold season. So far, however, it feels more like we are stuck with the worst of both worlds: the cold and the rain. When your roof is tin and nailed onto not nearly enough wooden beams, the tin pulls away from the beams when it’s windy, leaving you with holes in your roof. We’ve been lucky in that it usually doesn’t leak when it rains. Except when you hit about day three of rain in a row. Which was yesterday. Thankfully, it’s only been leaking in one area this time (so far).
Strangely, the time when the roof leaks the most is not when it has been raining but when the weather warms up a bit. When this happens, the roof starts leaking at night. Unfortunately, one of the leaks is directly above where Sara sleeps. This means that she has been woken up (more than once) by cold water dripping on her face at 2 a.m. Trust me, it’s quite unpleasant.

By this point it probably goes without saying that the weekend has been fairly uneventful. We’ve holed up in our home due to the rain. We’ve been playing cards, watching movies on the laptop and reading (we both finished our 13th book since coming to South Africa!). Hope everyone had a nice weekend and HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY!