My Week Without Water

It took me a few days to post this so as of right now there is water in my house. I wrote this when there was no water. The water came back after a long fight with the water company but I have a feeling it is going to go out again since they are doing a lot of work in the area. We’ll see. For now please continue and read about life without water.

We haven’t had water at my house for a week now. I thought not having electricity was bad but not having water is way worse. Not having water makes life very hard and very frustrating. You probably don’t realize how important water is to your daily life. I’m here to tell you that, after learning the hard way, water is crucial to your life, and I’m not even talking about drinking water. If you live in a place that has consistent water then your use of water probably never crosses your mind. I know plenty of people do try and be conscious of how much water they are using but it is still there when you need it. For the past week I did not have water when I needed it. The difficulty of life increased significantly.

I can’t just get up and wash my hands or my face and that alone is surprisingly infuriating. Not being able to wash dishes drove me crazy, not being able to shower was getting annoying, but not being able to wash my hands was probably the worst part for me. Uganda isn't very clean so washing your hands is an important part of life especially when you have the cutest but at the same time dirtiest little neighbor children who love to hug and touch you. Hello germs! I wash my hands and my face frequently and not being able to was seriously affecting my usual happy demeanor. I was getting annoyed. Oh wait, I’m still annoyed because we still don’t have water. I’m sitting at a coffee shop right now instead of working from home because at least this place has a working toilet. Let me take a break in my complaining and tell the story.

Catching rain water

I was leaving for Gulu early Thursday morning two weeks ago and as I was leaving the house my housemate said there wasn’t any water. I wasn’t too concerned about it at that point for a few reasons one being that we never have problems with the water and I figured it would come back in a few hours and two because I was leaving for two days and didn’t have to deal with it.

Oh how wrong I was.

I came back from Gulu on Saturday afternoon and the water had just come back. I was glad I was out of town for the lack of water but felt bad that my housemate had to deal with no water. The water was on until Tuesday. On Tuesday water stopped flowing from the kitchen sink and the outside tap. We still had water coming from all the other faucets because they are also connected to our reserve tank. We could shower, wash our hands, brush our teeth, etc which was great but by Thursday we were starting to run out of dishes because we hadn’t been washing them. On Friday we decided to have our cleaning lady come because she hadn’t come in two weeks and the house was really dirty and we needed our clothes washed. She used the water from the shower to clean the house and to wash the clothes. She had to use a lot of water and that’s when it happened. Saturday morning we were totally out of water. No more water in the reserve tank. We used it all up. The house was dry. We were not happy. However, at the top of our street there was a loose hose that the neighbors were gathering water from. We started filling up buckets and cans from there. We stored the water in the house so we could flush the toilets, bath, wash some dishes, etc. It wasn't easy but at least we had some water to use.

Catching rain water to flush the toilets with

On Monday the people who live in the house that the hose was coming from realized that it was their water the entire neighborhood was using and, understandably, they blocked it off. At this point we had absolutely no access to water. We couldn’t even fill buckets anymore. Things were getting really tough. I was extremely frustrated and had no desire to be at home. I work out at my friend’s house four mornings a week so I started showering there after working out.

Emily, my housemate, getting water 

from the hose up the street. Thanks neighbors!

This entire time we’ve been calling the water company and complaining, but they were less than helpful. On Wednesday afternoon I left work early so I could deal with the water situation. I called the water company for the 10^th time but this time I couldn’t control my anger and I screamed at the woman on the other end. I started off the conversation calm but then she asked me a really stupid question and I lost it. After I told her we still don’t have water she said, “It says here they fixed the problem. Why would it say that?” So after that comment I was no longer able to remain calm. Long story short I was put in contact with the person who was working on the project. A man was up the street working on the pipes going to the neighbor’s house so I talked to him and he said they would not be able to work on our pipes until the next day (today). As I type this I have no idea if there is water at the house. I saw them working early this morning but then didn’t see anyone working later in the morning. I have little faith we will have water today.

This has been one of the most frustrating experiences, and I am continually surprised at how hard life without water is. I always knew not having running water was a pain and that access to water is a huge issue in the developing world but I never really understood how hard life without water is until I experienced it. So while I am not happy we haven’t had water in weeks I gained a lot of perspective that I would not have had otherwise.

Uganda has taught me to be thankful for things I never even thought to be thankful for before I lived here. Water. Electricity. Street lights. Paved roads. City trash pickup. Good city planning. These few things significantly improve quality of life. We usually have water and electricity. Street lights are rare but exist on main roads. The main roads are also paved but most roads including the roads around my house are not. Also many of the paved roads are so riddled with potholes it doesn’t seem paved. I still haven’t decided if a paved road with tons of potholes is really better than a flat dirt road. I go back and forth. 

Anyway, now as I travel around the city and see people everywhere washing dishes in large buckets of water I understand how difficult that task really is and I think about how much easier that person’s life would be if they had access to running water. The daily tasks of Ugandan families living without direct access to running water would decrease significantly. From the looks of things kids spend half their day fetching water from nearby wells and other types of water sources. Uganda is growing rapidly but just as so many other developing countries it still lacks very basic infrastructure like running water and consistent electricity. I am so thankful I am able to live in a house that (usually) has water and electricity.