Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!

We have water again!! The water pump in our village broke about a week and a half ago, which meant that our village, which normally only gets water a few hours each week, didn’t have any for over 10 days! Ugh, it got pretty gross. Our host families drew water from the well, but its untreated and unsafe to drink without first boiling it for three minutes. Plus, you have to strain it when you collect it to get out all the bigger critters.

At our language teacher’s house, which is where we have class everyday, we ran out of water entirely after about 4 days. We ended up paying a village kid about 20 dhs to go to the well for us. While that’s only a few American dollars, it’s a lot around here and seriously put a cramp in our food budget. Our LCF called Peace Corps, and they ended up sending someone down with a van to get water from the well for us. Luckily, the water came back on a few days later. We were all getting a little gross. Although my host family stocked enough water in the bathroom for me to take a bucket bath every three days, Linda and Alicia went over a week without showering. They were feeling pretty icky

So now we have water again. I was able to do my laundry (thank goodness) and don’t have to feel bad about using up too much water in the bathroom. Hopefully, my final site will have water 24/7. I can live without electricity, but it’s a major pain to not have enough water.

Here are my host mom, Hafida, and youngest host brother, Zouhir, getting water from the well.