Water Wars

I have mentioned the water situation in Dangila in the past, but I have yet to convey the entire story, and considering it is almost a daily routine these days, I figure it is a story worth telling.  Many towns in Ethiopia have a steady water supply available from a spigot either in ones compound or from a neighboring compound.  Some Peace Corps volunteers are in towns where they must haul water from a river.  That mentioned, some volunteers also have running water and flush toilets!  I find myself in the middle of these two extremes, but nevertheless would consider my routine a “water war.”

Many families in Ethiopia have girls that live with them to help with cooking and cleaning, formerly I have called them “maid girls,” but in Amharic they are called “saratanyas.”  I debate this concept constantly, still figuring out how I feel about it.  Typically, they are teenage girls who are from a rural community without a school (or perhaps without a good school) who live with families in towns like Dangila.  They attend the normal half day of school (all schooling here is split into morning session and afternoon session students, by grade) and help around the house for the rest of the day.  In my compound, there are three saratanyas, two help with my landlord’s family, and one to help with the other family with a 1-year-old baby.


Back to the water situation.  Dangila has running water normally between the hours of midnight and 2am, every two or three days, if we’re lucky.  My compound has a small water tank on a tower to provide a working spigot during the day, which is wonderful when the tower is working, and before that supply runs dry.  Lately, the tower hasn’t been working, and like most things, I do not know the reason, I just know that when I turn the knob, water hasn’t been pouring into my bucket as I would like it to.

I have one bucket for storing water which I would assume holds about 5 gallons.  When I am stingy, that bucket can last me about three days, but when I have laundry or want to bathe more than every three days, I could easily use two buckets a day.  Therefore, every night around 11pm I access my current water situation.  I have been hoarding all plastic bottles purchased, and I make sure to keep them filled with tap water for reserve on days when my stash is running low.  I like to empty my bucket before filling it, to rinse out any dust that has collected in the bottom.  I fill up all the bottles I can with the remaining good water, and wait until midnight to see if the water will actually come.  There is no pattern or schedule, the water comes sporadically.  One unfortunate night I counted my chickens before they hatched and dumped out the semi-dusty bottom fourth of my bucket, only to realize the water wasn’t coming that night (that dusty water could have still been used for chores like cleaning dishes).  So, starting at around 10pm until midnight the water may or may not come, you just never know.  When the water does come, I can hear the sound of water beating down on empty plastic outside my window.  And guess whose job it is to fill the buckets for the other families on my compound?  The saratanyas.

The one spigot on my compound is on the right side of this picture.

I have one bucket.  I have timed it, and as the water slowly pours into my bucket, it takes about 5 minutes to fill.  The landlord has, I would guess, over 15 containers to store water, and the other family has at least 6.  So begins the water wars.  The girls speak hardly any English and when they speak in Amharic it is faster than anything I could understand, plus I’m not really up-to-par on my water vocabulary, which makes for a nightly battle.

Once the saratanya starts filling up her containers, I can’t very well butt in with my bucket, and unaware of water-retrieving etiquette, I would just wait in my house for a break in the sound of water pounding on plastic, when I would hurry outside to catch the spigot unoccupied.  The girl who fills up the buckets for my landlord is the only one who isn’t incredibly warm towards me.  I thought I was making it up, but one desperate day I asked the kids in my compound for water, as they always have spare from their 15+ containers.  They eagerly set out to fill up my bucket from one of their containers, and the saratanya snapped at the kids for helping me!   It has taken a few months, but I now know that if I sit outside by my front door and read a book with my headlamp with my empty bucket beside me, the saratanya will eventually beckon me in Amharic and allow me to fill my one bucket before continuing with her marathon of containers.  As the spigot begins to fill my bucket I run back and forth from my house to the spigot filling any other pitchers, pots, or bottles unoccupied by water already.  I swear my 5 minute routine could be on a game show!

The Girl with a Plan

I always like to have a plan.  I plan things for tomorrow, I plan things for later this year, and I have even started planning possible adventures for after my time in the Peace Corps.  I suppose that is just who I am.  The next two years are going to be a testament to this habit of mine because it has never been harder to have a plan.

Recently I have found myself writing letters in the morning, explaining briefly, what I plan to do that day.  If you have received one of these letters, you can probably disregard what I wrote, because something entirely different probably occurred.  Yet, I am sitting here in my house on my laptop with a list in front of me of things I need to do tomorrow.  I can guarantee you all these things won’t be crossed off in the next 24 hours.  What I cannot guarantee is that ANY of these things will be crossed off!

That’s the funny thing about life here, you really never know what is going to happen when you wake up in the morning.  Everyday is different, and most days I really love that part of my life right now.  I don’t mind when things do go as planned I suppose, I just love having that plan in case I find time to myself (which is not often these days).  In fact, writing a new blog has been on my list for a while now, and guess what? That didn’t go as planned either.

I PLAN on getting online tomorrow and emailing my mom this update for her to post, but you just never know.  That plan requires the electricity to be on, the little store nearby that lets me use internet must be open, the phone line has to be working to allow the computer to dial up.  All that can only be a factor if I actually find time to go to the store in the first place.

Why have my plans fallen by the wayside? Well, partly because Ethiopians do not plan.  It is not unusual for me to get a knock on my door at any hour telling me to come drink coffee or eat injera.  These get-togethers are not typically announced to me beforehand, but rather a spontaneous gathering.  It is also not usually a question, but rather a command, “Be!” (Eat!).  These impromptu invitations have caused me more than once to eat a meal twice.  I will have just finished lunch when a knock comes announcing lunch next door.  I politely eat a small serving and enjoy the Ethiopian company.

Just this morning I planned on having a relaxing Saturday with only one appointment, lunch at 1pm lunch.  I planned on getting up at 6am and going on a run with Arbay at sunrise, the only time I can find a little peace and quiet outside my house.  Believe it or not, that part went as planned!  Then I planned on taking a shower, which had to be substituted with a bucket bath because not only was the water off, but the water tank on my compound was empty.  My lazy morning of reading was suspended when my neighbor Ali started talking to me about his new satellite dish.  It is not uncommon for families to have satellite TV, which Ali told me, cost 1400 Birr ($140) for the satellite box and dish (once you have the box and dish there are no additional payments).

So Ali tells me he thinks he has to pay 200 Birr for someone to assemble the dish ($20 for assembling a small dish here is outrageous!).  I tell him I am quite handy and that I will help him put it together.  After a short trip to the hardware store, where they let us borrow the 2 wrenches we needed, it took less than an hour for me to decode the confusing instructions put together the dish with the help of Ali and the 12-year-old son of my landlord.  They were so grateful that they insisted on feeding me lunch at noon, which I could not decline, before hurrying off to my 1pm lunch appointment.

After that lunch appointment and coffee ceremony, I headed home expecting another coffee ceremony at my neighbor’s house (which was mentioned to me earlier this morning).  It is now 4pm, the other coffee ceremony has yet to occur, but I did take time to play jump rope (with an old tube of some sort) with the kids in my compound for a while.  Now I finally have found a brief moment of silence and decided to sneak away to my house before the next inevitable knock at my door!