Well it is not what you think. First "maji" is water in Swahili and that is what we didn't have. The water department is putting in new pipes along the street and when it came down to our apartment complex, they were working on it so they turned off the water. Now, this isn't as bad as it sounds since most houses, apartments and offices have a small water tower on them. The city water slowly fills this tower and when the municipal supply is interrupted, the tower provides water for a while. Unfortunately, on our apartment there are three 2000 liter (500 gallon) tanks for 6 apartments and by Monday afternoon we had drained them dry. If we had been warned, we could have conserved but with about 20 people in these apartments the water usage was significant.
Anyway, off goes the water -- actually sort of gradually on Monday. Grace did fill two 5 gallon buckets and her mop pail so we had enough for dish washing, cooking and a few flushes. On Tuesday morning things started to get critical as we needed some extra flushes and our supply was running low. I headed off to the Stiles compound (much like the Linder compound only tropical) with my bucket. The nice guard lady shook her head (I am sure she does that just when she sees me in my shorts and bright yellow "Fish Lake Walk/Run for Jesus" shirt) and pointed down the block. I shrugged my shoulders and she took me by the bucket to Mama's -- the little bar and convenience shop across the street. Soon we had a full (and leaking) bucket and back we came. She hoisted the 40 pounds of water on her head and up we went to bring much needed Maji to apartment C-6.
We were actually solving two crises at a time. The ceiling light in the kitchen died on Saturday and we were washing dishes by dork light. Dale and I took the bulb out and Caleb and I stopped by a hardware store on the way home from the market on Tuesday as well. We have tried many different little stores for light bulbs, wall sockets, wire and such. Each one looks disheveled on the outside but most are neat and well organized on the inside. We found a very nice gentleman (who also shook his head at my shorts and shirt) who tested our old bulb (it glowed like a snake through the tube) and a new bulb and wrapped up the new bulb (we call it Caleb proofing) and sent us on our way for a couple of bucks. Caleb installed the new bulb and we can see to wash dishes; now if we only had water to wash.
As we are starting the dinner preparations, the power goes off. Since all we wanted to do was make bacon for BLT's, I got the kerosene stove out and set it up on porch. I am sure the same guy that sees us park the truck at the market can see that we have outsmarted the power gods once again and shakes his head and turns on the power. Those foreigners might be dumb but eventually they figure out a way around just about anything that Africa throws at them -- he thinks. The power returned: Annica could finish her sewing, Carrie could cook the bacon and I could run the ham radio for a few more minutes.
As we sat down for dinner, voices in the parking lot below told us something was up. There was the manager of the water system (you can tell he is important, he has a walkie talkie) flushing the pipes to the complex before restoring service. A few minutes later, gurgle, gurgle, poof, poof and water started to flow. Let me tell you about the poof, poof part. Since the tanks and pipes empty on a regular basis, (we usually have no water just after everyone has left for work) air gets in the pipes. This air is repressurized when the pipes fill again and big bubbles of air become little bubbles of compressed air. When Dale turns on the faucet, he gets a nice shower from the poof of air and water that emerges. We have learned to turn on the faucet slowly and stand back. Anyway, the water pressure slowly increased as the tanks above us refilled. With this new piping system, we have nice water pressure and we have lots of water. It was worth the wait, but just a little warning would have been nice. There are about 6 5-gallon buckets here in the apartment and we could have filled all of those in preparation for the water loss. Oh well T.I.A.
The boys went to the International School on Tuesday afternoon for soccer and basketball. We all did a run to the market for pop and ice cream. Tuesday is milkshake night so we indulged with chocolate shakes and called it a day. Water, light in the kitchen and milk shakes -- life can't get much better.
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