A seemingly random claim, for how could a PVC pipe buried 2 feet underground get crushed, cutting off water to the house? Instead, we knew there were a number of more likely problems with the plumbing setup that would prevent water from coming to the house. Below is a mere sampling of the process we’ve been through.
Problem #1 – Since water supply from the village couldn’t climb all the way up into the Dispensaire water tower there musn’t be enough pressure
Solution – We ignored the water tower and rerouted the village water supply directly to the house we’re staying in. Voila! Running water to the house!
Problem #2 - Since the village didn’t always have diesel fuel to run their water pump and fill their reservoir (or at least, the diesel they did have wasn’t used to fill the tower…) we often had no water for several days at a time.
Solution – So we figured we’d better now fix our water tower supply problem. We installed a smaller diameter hose at the tower to increase pressure, and voila! Water filled the tower!
Problem #3 - Water still wasn’t coming to the house so there must be a blockage between the tower and the house, a mere 60 metres distance
Solution - Dig! We started digging every 20 or so feet, trying to find the pipe each time to see in what general direction it headed on it’s path from the tower to the houses. We discovered that it took the most unexpected path – right through the root system of a very large tree!
Problem #4 – A crushed pipe!
Solution - We dug a new channel about 35m long to get around the tree and attached the new PVC to the existing pipe and voila! We now have a constant supply of water! No more drawing water from the well using our 70 ft rope and bucket! No more ‘bathing by the cup’ or hand filtering water to drink using our little filter pump we used when camping back home (it takes about 600 pumps to fill a 5L bottle!). The reservoir holds well over 1000litres (maybe even as much as 2000), which hopefully will be enough water to bridge between days when the village pumps water that we can use to refill.
But it gets even better…
- We also have a small electric hot water tank (~30-40L) that automatically refills from the reservoir when it empties. Not that we use the hot water showers - a cold shower is much more inviting here in Niaguis – but it’s nice to was dishes with hot water.
- In the kitchen, we also have a wall spigot leading to two filters – one ceramic, one carbon – from which we refill our drinking water bottles. It’s good water and we know it’s not chemically treated!
- AND last but certainly not least, we have a ‘Bonne’ (housekeeper) that does all of our laundry…by hand of course…Tammy will tell you more about that another time.
Life is good!
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Problem - since drafting this blog entry offline a couple of days ago, we are now without running water again! We’re back to bucket showers and maybe hand-filtering water again if the village doesn’t pump water soon. But as of this morning, there’s a diesel fuel shortage in the area that might mean no water for a little while yet… we’ll see. Just when we thought we had it made!
Solution - We’re now working on fixing an old hand-pump that was in storage so we can pump from our own well into buckets, or even up to our own tower. Gotta be resourceful around here!
Canada still has reliable running water, doesn't it?
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Earlier this week, we also got water of another sort. Rain water. It was only a light spray for 10 minutes or less – a mere introduction of the torrential downpours we’re repeatedly being told to expect. We both love hard rainstorms and thunderstorms (not sure our cats will be that fond of them), but it’s the mosquitoes and snakes that come with the rain that have us worried… bet your gonna hear more from us about these critters...
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