Water is a good thing…
What can I say? This is Africa. Things don’t always happen when or how you want them to. For instance, we moved into our new house and 2 days later we ran out of water. Turns out that in this part of the city, they only pump water to the houses a couple days of the week. We have a 1000L water tank to last us for the week. Well, it lasted 2 days. OK, so we’re Americans and we use tons of water without thinking about it! Well, that has changed! We are now carefully using every bit of water we have for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, and flushing the toilets occasionally!
So now, the landlord has added a second water tank (bringing our capacity to 2000L) and we've been waiting for the water to come and fill them both. In the mean time, we've had 13-20L jugs that we could fill at our Landlord’s house or down at the local car washing station (mudhole off the side of the road) for a small fee (~$2). We've now just discovered a water-delivery service that can come and fill our tanks for ~$50. They were able to come yesterday and after over a week, we finally can take a shower!
We’re very thankful that we have a great water filtration system. We’ve been drinking water from it for over a week now without any problems. It uses 3 carbon-core ceramic filters in parallel to filter 10L at a time.
We have a new car!
Last Thursday we picked up our “new” car! It’s actually a 1994, Toyota “Super Custom” minivan with full time 4WD and a great ground clearance for those horribly rutted back country roads. It’s got a turbo diesel engine with auto transmission and AC, too. Although it’s old, it only has about 10,000 miles on it. Most of the vehicles here (the used ones at least) are imported from Japan. We’ve already had our first flat tire so I got to practice putting on the spare. Thankfully it was in our own front yard!
I’ve been driving quite a bit in the last few days and it seems to feel pretty natural. I even ventured into downtown Kampala on Monday to go to the bank and made it in and out without any problems! For those of you who haven’t been here, Kampala is a real mess, traffic wise. I was very uneasy about driving there, but as with many new things we have to do here, once you actually do it, it’s not so bad.
I’ve been driving quite a bit in the last few days and it seems to feel pretty natural. I even ventured into downtown Kampala on Monday to go to the bank and made it in and out without any problems! For those of you who haven’t been here, Kampala is a real mess, traffic wise. I was very uneasy about driving there, but as with many new things we have to do here, once you actually do it, it’s not so bad.
Hooray for water! When we were on a mission in Belize we didn't have any water until it rained. Then we got to take a 2 minute shower! :) It is amazing how spoiled we American's are an we don't even realize until something like that happens. Hopefully your extra water tank will make it a little easier for you!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a problem driving on the wrong side of the road? :) I think I could get myself in trouble. :) I know when I was touring Europe it was so scary to be coming around a corner and seeing all the traffic coming at me in my lane! Luckily I didn't have to drive, and of course they weren't really in my lane, but it felt like it. :) Good luck with all of your new challenges. I'm so excited to see how much God is going to bless you!