We DON'T Have Running Water!!!

  With water swishing in the buckets on our heads and dripping down our arms, Tristan and I walked unsteadily down the rocky, dirt road leading to our backyard. Kicking the gate open, we trudged up to our 'reservoir' (a burnt-mustard, fifty-gallon plastic container).  Then we slowly poured our prize inside. Why? Because right now we don't have running water! Our routine has looked really funny the past few days: the water kicks on for literally five minutes and everyone runs around like maniacs filling empty buckets and washing their hair. So trust me, we all stink.

This is how we take baths right now....

 Doing the dishes and washing our hands is hard enough, but doing laundry is especially difficult. We have to manually pour water into the machine until it works. Drinking water is pretty much taken care of. We have a big bucket next to our sink filled with clean water. If needed, we just buy bottled-water or boil tap water for 6 minutes, although this is our last resort.

How we wash our hands...

But when our reservoir gets low, we have to refill it. That's where it gets hard/fun/interesting. We have to walk roughly 200 ft to the pump at 'Student Housing', fill our buckets, then walk all the way back and empty the buckets. Then we start over....

Carrying a bucket filled to the brim on your head is MUCH  harder than it looks; one of the hardest things is that the water swishes forward and backward in motion with you, which knocks you off balance. But we laugh and talk which takes the edge off the work.

Aidan LOVES this picture; I showed it to him and he yelled,"I'm in mid-air!"

Pumping is hard work!

Random student's wives would walk up to us and laugh. That was embarrassing, but Tristan enjoyed it.

Lurch forward-lurch forward-lurch forward-

When I poured the water inside our 'reservoir', my neck felt like it was a rubber band being stretched from an already taught length to max. It felt good in a way. :)  Aidan took one video of me dumping water, but got mostly leaves and our sidewalk in the video.... but you will get the jist.

I think we went back and forth about five times, and may have to do it FIVE MORE times.

Whew, that's hard work!

That's not water, that's SWEAT! But my shirt is wet from the bucket... mostly

Sneak peek at our kitchen right now:

Look at all that fresh produce!

The water came back on as I wrote this and so far has been on for a record 15 minutes. One family member hopped in the bathroom and declared they wouldn't come out for 2 hours. Let's pray it stays on!!!