Things We Take For Granted

On Tuesday I took my first shower in five days. I know what you are thinking and I am just sorry that no one has invented click and sniff technology for the internet. No, my hygiene issues were not by my choice and no, I had not joined some odd religious sect that prohibits bathing. Rather, the pump that pulls water from the community well had stopped working during the worst possible time - semana de turismo. Elsewhere in Latin America, the week is known as semana santa, or “holy week”, for the week ending with Easter Sunday. However, very secular Uruguay calls it tourism week. Never wanting for an excuse to stop work, virtually the whole country goes on vacation. As far as getting a repairman out to the country to fix the pump during semana de turismo - forgetaboutit.

Me climbing the water tank in the back yard. Bravo Randy & Michelle for having installed such an awesome holding tank.

Fortunately, the pumped well water goes to a two thousand liter holding tank behind the house before being used for bathing, cooking, cleaning and flushing the toilet, among other quotidian things we take for granted. Used conservatively , two thousand liters can be made to last a while for two people. It was the weekend before semana de turismo that we noticed our lack of water pressure. Usually this just means that someone has turned it off because of pipe repairs or something like that. On Monday, we still had pathetic lack of pressure so we went to check it out. Bad news - the pump was powered on and just not working. So began our conservation efforts like “navy” showers and a “if it’s yellow let it mellow” policy. Eventually even the super short showers ceased and we reverted to taking what I call bird baths with store-bought water heated in the kettle on the stove.

The pump is back in business as of last Tuesday. We thought we were conservative with resources, but after this, we became aware of how much we had been wasting. We were grateful to be able to flush the toilet again just by using the lever. I even looked forward to washing dishes using the tap water. There is nothing like doing without something for a while to really appreciate it.