Monday, March 28, 2011

Water shortage

Funny story.

Well, not really, but it could be.

I heard at Bible study last Wednesday that the water in town was going to be turned off...again (it's been off a lot lately). Thankfully, the city water pumps into our water tank, so even when water is off, there is a small reservoir we can use. We were also told that both town pumps were broken, so it could be a while before water comes back on.

What I didn't realize when I heard this is that it had already been turned off.

Fast-forward to the next day. The kids and I were at my team leader's house when he told me he had no more water in his tank and he has spent part of the day pumping water into it from his rain tank.

I thought I should call Doug just to be sure. He said, "I just crawled up there two days ago, and it was fine, but I'll check and see."

When I got home, he told me it was EMPTY.

I'm sure it was. I had washed three loads of clothes in the last two days. OOPS!

So...Doug, being the incredible man he is, thought of a system to get water in our tank (we don't have an electric pump).

Step One: Fill up basins from the rain tank (Thank you, Jesus, that we have had some rain).

That was tricky since the spout is so close to the ground, but our washing basins fit perfectly under the pipe.



Step Two: I pour the basin into a bucket tied to a long rope, while the second basin is filling.



Step Three: Doug hauls up the bucket to the top of the tower.


Step Four: Pour it in.

Ahhh! Sweet, rain water.


This is our set-up, with the Sudanese neighbors next door as an audience.



We worked on this for awhile, until Doug had to go to baseball practice.

Funny part?

Two hours later, the city water was turned back on.

Priceless

(Side note for all those subscribers that get this in their email: I really try hard to make the blogs look good, but for some reason when they come into an email, the pictures and words are never where I put them. Sorry.)

3 comments:

The Spears Family said...

So funny. Two days ago, we had a bad thunderstorm. Big lightening struck during dinner and electric went off. Jonathan scurried around turning off everything to conserve the inverter as he said, 'that's a bad one, electric will be off for a while.' Ten minutes later, it came back. I laughed.

Alison said...

So funny! And so glad that your water is back on! We had some precious Ugandan girls with the African Children's Choir stay with us this past weekend! We fell in love with them!!! Adorable!

Bran said...

Love this story...it's awesome of how life is!!! Love the pictures too!