Water Woes

Allow me to tell you two stories. Here is the first...

We arrived in Pommern late on a Monday afternoon. On Wednesday morning, we awoke to a lack of running water. Things worked out just fine, as some water had been stored for situations like this and the manual pumps in the village still worked. We had buckets of water for when we needed to flush toilets or wash our hands. Wetwipes and GermX became very good friends of ours. When we finally got up the courage to ask, Mama Tony was happy to fill our sun showers for us so we could bathe properly.

In the meantime, various people investigated what the problem with our water might be. At first, no one was quite sure. A couple of days later we were told the tank was filling down at the secondary school; it would just be a matter of time before we had water back up at the top of the hill. A couple of days after that, Jackson and Edward again investigated a place in the pipe between the school and the mission house. Six and a half days after the initial loss of water, on Tuesday afternoon, I heard a glorious noise -- running water filling up the toilets in the bathrooms!

This is an excellent depiction of African time. Things don't ever happen immediately. Resources aren't readily available. And it's NOT a terrible thing. Of course we wanted our water back, but none of us was terribly upset about the situation. It was an issue over which we had no control, and we simply waited patiently until it could be rectified.

The back side of the mission house, where you can see our water tank -- with water flowing!

Three girls getting water from the pump by the clinic, just a hundred meters or so from the mission house

And now for the second story...

I arrived back at my house in the U.S. on Wednesday of this week. On Friday afternoon, I learned I had no hot water. At 2:20 p.m. I called the local heating and plumbing company. They had someone to my house by 3:00 to investigate the problem. By 4:00 I was being informed of my choices, which included replacing a part that had just been replaced a year and a half ago or buying a new water heater to replace the 19-year-old unit. I opted for the latter, and within 20 minutes a second technician had arrived with the new unit. By 5:20 (3 hours after I first called, mind you), the new water heater was installed and the workers were on their way out the door.

I was thrilled with such prompt service, but at the same time my mind kept wandering back to Pommern. We were perfectly okay waiting almost a week for our water to return. Not that I wanted a cold shower last night, but it certainly wouldn't have been the end of the world if it had taken some days to get things fixed. I really, really hope I can keep an African mindset about things well into the future. Tanzania is such a society of peace, working together, being patient, and so on. Hakuna matata! (Yes, that really is a Swahili phrase, and yes, I heard it used in conversation multiple times -- awesome!)

P.S. I just went back and added a BUNCH of pictures to the two entries I wrote while I was in Tanzania. They're captioned and really help tell the stories. A picture is worth a thousand words, you know, so go check them out!