As you know, I don’t have running water. Therefore it must be filled every so often. And since I use this sink also to do my dishes and wash my hands in, it’s pretty often. “Where does the water go?” you might ask. It collects underneath the sink into a bucket.
From there, it goes down the toilet. Sometimes I just use this bucket to flush my doings.
This is the top, where the water goes:
This is how I do my laundry:
I set up my station and put on a movie to keep my mind off the long and arduous process of hand-washing my clothes.
So you get an idea:
(That green bucket is also my bathtub)
The finished result:
I made the mistake of letting my laundry pile up the first week or so. So I’ve spent the past few days hacking away at it. I finally finished it today. Yesterday I erred in doing a larger load than my laundry line is capable of holding. I put the extra shirts on some chairs and it stained them.
This is the well I fetch water from daily:
Depending on if I am doing laundry or not, I make anywhere from 1-3 trips to the well daily with a bucket in each hand. Twice now I drew water to find a frog swimming in the bucket. At least I know the water can support life. I’ve been drinking from it since I’ve been here. I’m not going to let a couple frogs stop me from living.
I’m supposed to go back to camp in the next couple days. Actually, I was supposed to go back today, so I timed my food consumption so that I’d have eaten all or most of my perishable foods by today. So when I snooped around in my fridge, I found only half a head of cabbage, half a carrot, and half an onion. I also had a whole frozen chicken leg in my freezer. So what did I do? I thought I’d make myself a chicken and rice soup. I wanted to add tomatoes so I went to the store only to find that their power was out and refused to sell me a tomato. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just sold it to me and added my money to the cash register later. Such is life.
But I made do with what I had and made myself a delicious chicken and rice soup that will last me for at least 2 more meals. And I didn’t have to go grocery shopping to do it.
Yesterday, I went to pay my utility bills: gas and electric. It came out to be 5 gryven and change. Remember, 1 USD is about 8 gryven. Madness. Granted I was at camp half the month. Still, it’s dirt cheap. We’ll see what the winter gas bill is like.
I try to call at least one person a day. The other Peace Corps groups have been very supportive and have gone out of their way to contact us newcomers. Sometimes I talk to them and other times with my cluster mates. We swap stories and laughs. I feel very welcome here and I really do feel the “peace corps family” vibe. I wonder whom I’ll call today…
call me!
ReplyDeletedang son you are hard core... frogs in my bucket might have done it for me.
This is awesome tho. You inspire me.