With our lack of water at home (not C4KK) we’ve been discussing “which would you rather be without, water or electricity?” Now don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have both of course, but I don’t have that choice. The guy who pumps water to a tank on the compound is having pump issues. He told us on Friday he’d look at it on Monday and as expected we ran out of running water on Saturday.
Here are my thoughts on the matter:
Without water….we normally purchase bottled water anyway for drinking so that’s not an issue but having running water sure is nice for showers, washing dishes and flushing toilets. However we are able to fill up 10 liter water jugs from C4KK to use for bathing and washing dishes and we have a 50 liter container filled from a cistern on the compound for flushing toilets.
Washing dishes without running water
Without electricity….we have a generator which can run the computers, tv, refrigerator and various lights (it will not however run the heater for the shower, but that doesn’t matter if there isn’t any water flowing anyway) nor will it run the oven (thankfully we have a gas stove top).
If we use the generator it’s noisy, smelly and uses gas. I don’t like using it later in the evening because I feel it disturbs the neighbors. Plus I have to time when I open up the freezer or frig in order to keep stuff cold inside. TV watching is sporadic, not always a bad thing, but sometimes I just want to veg and without electricity I’d have to schedule those times.
However with water it sure is easier to wash dishes and it isn’t such a hassle to flush a toilet (without running water we dump a bucket of water from the cistern in the tank in order to flush). Showering is still out of the question because we need both running water and electricity in order for the shower to work – again, the generator won’t produce enough electricity to run the shower head.
So with that which would you rather be without? Praying our water situation is over very quickly.