For the last few days we haven’t had any water. I don’t mean rain falling from the sky, which we do have enough of in Bogota. I mean in my apartment complex.
A water pipe broke in a neighbor’s apartment and to get it fixed it’s the usual story: a steady stream of plumbers and other experts who say they can’t fix it, and the water company who says it’s not their problem either.
Living without running water is frustrating. However, there has been an unusual upside for me: it’s made me remember the years I lived without much access to running water in rural Latin America.
The luxury of running water
My husband and I volunteered our time on construction projects that benefited economically disadvantaged communities around Latin America.
“Economically disadvantaged” means they didn’t have much in the way of water. Or electricity. Or paved roads. In other words, communities that the world had forgotten about.
In those rural areas, running water was a bit of a luxury, one that we enjoyed in infrequent spurts. At times we’d get the gift of water once every 10 days. Imagine cooking for a large family with no running water. My goodness, what a blessing running water is!
However, our projects were much larger than just one family- they involved whole communities.
Imagine building a whole building made of concrete without running water. Mixing all that cement without running water and without electricity or sometimes even gasoline to run a mixer. I shoveled a lot of sand, gravel, and cement by hand in those days.
Just as tricky was trying to cook for the team of volunteer workers – sometimes more than 200 people – without any running water (or any source of water at all).
So just think about how you’d wash dishes for 200 people without…yes, you guessed it. Without running water.
Adapting
I developed an unusual skill in those years without water. Unusual for most Americans, that is.
I realized how useful that skill had been to me when I recently visited a friend in rural Colombia. After a particularly heavy rainstorm, there was suddenly no running water.
My friend opened the tap and stared at nothing. No water. We had prepared dinner while there was still water, but now there was no way to clean up.
She managed to find a bucket of water thanks to the generosity of a neighborhood who’d made a trip to the nearby river.
She struggled to wash a few dishes. After balancing the bucket on the side of the sink, she held a small plastic container with water in one hand and a not-yet-very-soapy dish in another. And that’s when things fell apart.
After a few minutes, I said, “Move aside.”
I’m not sure what part of our brains remember those kinds of things. I hadn’t lived in rural areas for years, and I had forgotten that I had created a system for washing dishes with the least amount of water possible.
I got those dishes clean in no time, with seemingly little effort. And a lot of admiration from my friend. But it was only because I’d practiced so often in so many rural areas.
(If you need any tips on how to take a shower with a half a bucket of water, please get in touch).
How your purchases can help rural communities
We take running water for granted. However, in many places – including many places where your coffee or chocolate is grown – people have little access to running water.
That’s another reason why paying more for better quality coffee and chocolate (and buying from companies who pay their producers fair prices) can make a difference.
Farmers who earn more create more affluent communities that can afford to install water systems that ensure the distribution of clean water to more people.
It’s that simple. Well, it’s not. It’s super complex. But your purchases do help communities head towards better infrastructure.
And hopefully my neighbor’s water pipe will get repaired soon and we’ll also have a better distribution of water even here in the megacity of Bogota!!
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