Drought

Southern California exists in a semi-permanent state of draught, but despite all the talk of water scarcity, we can’t remember water running out, or ever encountering a tap which failed to produce the precious liquid back home. Here in Africa you know it’s a drought when you toss your bucket down the well and instead of hearing that reassuring splash you just get a muddy thud. This year is particularly parched and our wells are already going dry; we still have at least a month or two before we expect the rainy season to relieve us. With questionable water availability we have to rethink all of our daily activities. Drinking water is top priority. Washing clothes? Good luck. Taking a bath? Hopefully, but maybe recycling water used earlier to rinse our salad vegetables. Maybe we have to wear our semi-clean/semi-dirty clothes a couple extra times between washes (Luc doesn’t seem to mind), and then save the sudsy laundry water for our dishes. Maybe we get lucky and we’re first in line at the well and we get water that’s actually translucent and not chocolate milk. It’s extra stressful when we have guests. People are trekking down to the small reservoir dammed up at the edge of town to do washing, but we don’t trust that parasite infested body of water, and our local stream reeks of cesspool, so we don’t have too many alternatives available. We’ve even had to buy water to get out of a couple of pinches. We’ve reducing our usage to about five gallons of water per day person. Maybe the rains will come early and relieve us, but either way we know that from now on, we’ll appreciate turning on the tap so much.