23rd September 2011 (11th day of the first month 2004 local date)
Our eager arrival at our new home, a spacious villa-like house within its own compound (high walls with big metal gates) was tempered by the realisation that it hadn’t been cleaned since the departure of the previous tenant some months earlier, and probably a long time before that!. We hope that the removal of lots of rubbish, plenty of cleaning and scrubbing, and copious amounts of Vim and bleach will do the trick over the next few weeks. Meanwhile we thought we would tell you about getting water in northern Ethiopia
There are pipes that bring water from a reservoir 5 miles away into a tank on the roof. This tank has no cover and is open to birds and dirt – Gareth has climbed up a rickety, home made ladder to fix a cover – it may need some duct tape to hold it in place. Anyway, that’s immaterial because when the stop cock is turned on, water gushes out of the wall and from the bendy connection pipes in the kitchen and bathroom. Much mopping up later and we decide to give up and use the stand pipe in the compound. At least twice a day, water is collected in big buckets and dustbins, one for the kitchen and one for the bathroom. A shower takes a little longer than usual and I have had a shower in a miserly 3 jugs of cold water – very refreshing! When it comes to the Monday laundry-by-hand I might not have such a smile on my face.
Water for food prep, has to be boiled for 10 min. to kill the giardia and other bugs, and then filtered. It takes the night to filter enough for the whole day. We tried making tea with this water but it tastes foul, so we buy litre bottles of mineral water for tea and cold drinks. We may try adding cinnamon for flavouring the tea; milk is not available so we are getting used to black tea. We have certainly had to make some adjustments to our way of life.
More next time on the joys of shopping without a car.
