There is a saying in the Peace Corps, An optimist looks at the glass and says it’s half full, a pessimist looks at the glass and says it’s half empty, a Peace Corps volunteer looks at the glass and says ‘I could take a bath in that.’
I found truth in that statement this weekend we the water to the entire town of Mtubatuba was turned off for now going on 24 hours and likely to last for two or three days. I try to bath as little as possible now that it is winter and it is too cold to even take your clothes off to get in the water. Yesterday though, was really the day I could put it off no longer. In the village I stayed in during training, the water to the village was only on three days a weeks and we stored water in barrels for the other days. In my current village, water is on all the time, except for occasionally going off for two hours at a time maybe once a month. We store a little bit of water in one barrel for these occasions. Not knowing how long the water would be off last night, I used as little water as possible to bathe, managing to even wash my hair in about two kettles worth of water. I was quite proud of the accomplishment, even though it was a freezing and miserable experience. At least the entire town is in the same boat and will all be suffering in two days. Thankfully, there are no photos to accompany this post.
