Things I Have Learned from Long Water Outages

Monday, Thursday, and Saturday have been water rationing days for our entire two years in Botswana (I recently learned that in California this means no watering the lawn. Here, its more straightforward. It just means the water is turned off on these days). However, as the weather turns cold and dusty, and the dam has now reached 0% capacity, water is scarcer, more unpredictable and the empty pipes have taught us a few things. These are a bit hard to describe daintily. You have been warned.

1. If you don’t have a pit latrine you are wasting your time. You know those time management calculations of the total years of your life that you spent doing x? Well, I don’t want to know the percentage of my life I’ve spent attempting to flush a modern toilet without running water.

2. Math. 6 liters will flush a toilet once...or it will provide 2 baths, teeth brushings, face washes, pajama laundry, 3 cups of tea, and cook an entire pot of beans. Choose wisely.

3. More math. Storage and gray water sufficient for 20 flushes will last you one week if you conserve. It will last you one afternoon if somebody has a bad tummy. While your first instinct may be to curl up at home if you are tied to the toilet, in this case, your best option is also the most dangerous. Dress up and go to the capital. Try to reach a public toilet before its too late.  Then hang out there while people stare at you until you feel better.

4. Wet wipes make a very nice shower.

5. Living on the edge of town is a gift. Pooping in the lands is highly preferable to going on the sidewalk near the “don’t urinate or defecate here” signs.

6. Living on the edge of town is a curse. If you have to go while at work you have three options: go in the yard, keep a “special bowl” behind your desk, or start walking. If you are on the bus, and you arrive at the bus stop in the center of town, 40 minutes is a long ways to walk.

7. 27,000 people require infrastructure. Infrastructure can be built and it can fall apart. Pit latrines contaminate ground water and get banned. Indoor plumbing is not sustainable in a desert in drought, but you have to have one or the other. This is why the ancient Mesopotamians, Great Zimbabwe, the Romans, and the Aztecs engineered sewer systems for their highly populated areas. They were also located near water. It is hard for 27,000 people to live without water.

8. Access to water is highly political.

9. Popcorn makes a great, waterless dinner. Don’t wash that pot!

10. This one is from a friend in the southern Kalahari Desert: If you need to stay somewhere all day, plan ahead and don’t drink water in advance. This is also very dangerous. If you start to lose feeling in your head, scrap this plan immediately. Drink water with oral rehydration salts :)

11.Love is finding that someone has hauled and lifted to prepare the bathroom for you with the toilet tank full when the water is off.

12. Love is waking up at 3am to the sound of ominous gurgling (a sign of water returning to the pipes), cleaning, and refilling while your loved one sleeps until morning.