Challenges

The last 2 weeks have been challenging.  The electricity was off for over 48 hours, and just when it came back on, our running water went off for 8 days.

It made me a little crabby, even though I know that some of our Peace Corps colleagues--and many of the people of this county--face the same living conditions every day.  It's all in the expectations.

How did we cope?  We have flashlights, a solar lantern and candles.  We have many buckets of water stored in our pantry.  When that supply ran low, we enlisted some of the students to refill them at the tap on the other side of campus.  We rationed water for bathing, cooking, dish washing, and toilet flushing.  Cleaning the house and doing laundry was put off.

During this time, students got their own water from the afore-mentioned tap or went off campus to buy it.  I even saw some washing their clothes in the creek that separates the dorms from the classrooms.  Our school has 800+ students, and half of them are boarders.  That's a lot of demand for water.

(Did I mention that this is the end of the rainy season?  Much water in the creek, none coming out of our tap.  Distribution and infrastructure problems are rampant.)

(Mark says I'm complaining.  Honestly, I am not nearly as bothered by all of this as I would have been a year ago.)

So, besides coping and trying not to grumble, what else are we doing?  This area is perennially  drought-ridden.  In fact, in 2008, 500 cows died  because of drought in this district.  Our headmistress is concerned about the continuing problem, and she approached us with the idea of rainwater harvesting at the school.  We formed a committee, and have applied for a grant to fund the building of a system that will direct rainwater from the roofs of 4 classrooms to a 10,000 liter storage tank.  We've been working on the grant application for weeks and have finally sent it off to the agency that we hope will supply the money.  The water will be sent to the school kitchen first, and then the home economics classrooms.  (It takes a lot of water to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all those students).  The water currently being used, and any extra from the harvesting system, will be freed up for use by students and by teachers living on campus.  We pray that the grant will be funded and the system built before the rains start again.