March 10, 2010
Most days I feel like I’m living around the block in the US. I mean, sure, everyone else is brown with beautiful long swishy hair and I rarely hear a lick of English outside of school and home, but still, it doesn’t feel all that different. But there are times when I’m reminded of just where I am...
Apparently, we’ve hit the driest season of Nepal. Honestly, I had hoped that was past as I’m pretty sure our well bucket makes it to America before we hit water! And we had a FANTASTIC thunderstorm the other day, which got my hopes up with the sudden onslaught of water! But to my dismay, I read in the paper a few days later that rainy season doesn’t start until Junish. I mean, really people, JUNE?! Meaning that we haven’t hit the worst of the dry season yet. Resulting in two things: a shortage of clean water and a shortage of electricity.
About a week ago, I woke up, went downstairs and started into my devotional. A few minutes later kids started trickling downstairs with toothbrushes tucked under their arms, in their hair, or clutched in their tired hands. We use clean water to brush our teeth, but we’re not supposed to do much else with it outside of drinking. This water comes from an electric machine that’s about the size of a home fuse box. A short but cool background story: one of my dad’s friends works for a water purification company in the US. Actually, water purification is just one of it’s branches, but about 9 months ago they decided to install water purification systems in some third world countries, targeting schools and orphanages. And Nepal was one of their targeted areas. And this orphanage was one of the homes where they installed their machine, along with the school I teach at down the street! It’s a small world, isn’t it? Come to find out that without this machine, we’d have to walk about a quarter mile each way to get clean drinking water. Needless to say, I’m very thankful for his company’s generosity!
Anyway, we have two other types of water as well: somewhat purified water for cooking and well water for everything else, including our indoor plumbing. As it gets drier and drier here, the well water has become redder and redder. And with the power outages, there’s not as much drinking water, though we try to stock up with big water drums when there is power, but often there’s no water when there is power. Which leaves us in quite a pickle! So, about 10 minutes after the teeth brushing started, I heard loud scolding from the kitchen, with girls arguing incessantly. One of the girls had used the last of our drinking water to wash her face. I mean, it wasn’t a huge deal, because if we really wanted to drink water we could boil the somewhat purified water and drink it, but, I think it was the principle of the matter. And I’ll admit, I’ve been tempted more than once to use the drinking water for washing my face (somehow, washing you face in red water seems pointless!), but I’ve restrained myself! Last week, though, Uncle and Auntie let us start using the somewhat purified water for bathing as the well water is just too red, which should cut down on us women’s temptation to use the drinking water for our faces!
The other problem with the dry season, though, is the shortage of electricity. Most of Nepal is powered by Hydro-Electricity, and without a strong current in the rivers, the electrical output just isn’t there. And until the snow on the Himalayas starts melting, there won’t be enough electricity. That and the fact that much of the power generated is lost due to old out of date wiring systems and electrical plants. So, we’re down to about 12 hours of power per day on average, most of which is between the hours of 9 PM and 6 AM (not so helpful when you want to go out to a cyber shop!). While there are many things I’ll really appreciate when I get back to the US, clean running water and constant electricity will be 2 of the most appreciated ones!
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