7.28.10 Agua Fria

This week I moved into my very own apartment and for the first time in my life I’m living completely solo. It’s fun shopping for plates and towels and things but also expensive (ok, not relatively, but on a Peace Corps salary- yes expensive) and lots of work. But as I’m settling in at the new place, I realized some things I take for granted, and especially in the last few days- water.

At my host family’s house, they have hot water in the showers. There’s some sort of dangerous looking device with electrical wires that heats up the water and it allows for pleasant, warm showers anytime you want. At my new house, showers go something like this: I avoid them in the mornings when it’s cooler (Ecuadorians are firm believers that if you bathe in cold water when there’s also cool weather, you’ll get instantly sick), after working all day, biking, walking around and sweating, afternoons are the perfect time for showers. Lately though I’ve been busy up until night time so am forced to take a shower at night when it’s also cooler. This leads to dreading turning on the water, standing as far away from it as possible in the shower for a good few minutes, mentally preparing myself and finally just going for it while thinking a string of curse words and washing very quickly. BUT I figure this is all for the best, I am a natural resources conservation volunteer after all. Cold showers lead to short showers, (or heck, skipping showering altogether- the best form of water conservation) and my hair has never been softer or shinier!

Water is definitely on my mind more frequently here than in the U.S. Water outages are common in Tena for a day, half-day at a time so it’s important to have buckets always collecting rain water or reserve stocks of water for washing dishes, laundry etc. when the tap water is out. Lately every water source in my house gets me thinking, how can I collect this extra water that’s going down the drain? because I never know when I’m going to need it. Some communities here rely completely on rain water for their source of potable water. Rain collection tanks with simple filter systems are common and an excellent alternative to drinking water from contaminated sources. So why not seek out those extra buckets you have lying around, line them up under your rain spouts and wash your car or water your plants or start taking bucket baths, how practical! (my bucket is collecting the water dripping from my new sink as I write this…)