Nicaraguans live with water outages on a daily basis. There are times they will get up in the middle of the night in order to wash their clothes (by hand) because the water is only on at night. Or they will get up earlier then they had planned on in order to shower. Water outages happen through out the country and sometimes the outages are on a schedule, but other times there is no warning. The one thing that is consistent is that the water is not always consistent, so people store water in barrels, buckets or whatever they can in order to have enough water. People pay their utility bills, but there just isn’t enough water to go around for everyone. There is also no one to complain to. In the states people would be infuriated if they were paying their bills and still had water outages. People here don’t have that luxury…it is just the way life is here. They are happy they at least have access to water.
When we lived in Managua the water was hardly ever off, but several blocks away from where we lived we knew of people who would be without water all day. Since living in Teustepe we understand what it is like to live life with inconsistent water outages. At first it seemed like there was a schedule…no water from 8am-noon then water on until 5, the water would then be off until midnight. Then we had several days where the water was out from 6am-midnight. The next day the water was on we filled up some buckets we don’t normally use because they don’t have lids, but the water was on all day and for the days following. There was one time Seth woke up at 2am because he heard the water running (we left the shower on). At that time he filled all of our water storage containers and did dishes; then he heard the neighbor up washing clothes (by hand). This week our water has hardly been off. We have had water all day and it goes off around 6ish until 10ish.
So we have learned when the water is on fill up all the storage containers in order to be prepared. We store enough water to do dishes, shower, cook, flush the toilet (we use the motto, if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down), but not enough to do laundry or clean the floors. Therefore, when the water is on we have to do laundry and wash the floors. Our water is on this morning, so this is what a typical morning looks like: Filling all of our containers.
Our filter stores drinking and cooking water.
Pitchers full of drinking water.
Water for washing dishes.
Barrel for bathing and flushing the toilet.
Bucket showering, use the red bowl, you get the idea.
The next time you get a glass of water from your faucet, or shower, or wash clothes when you want to I hope you will be reminded of how water is a precious commodity and to be wise in it's use.
