This post, though, instead deals with the effects of all those guests on the water supply in our apartment. You see, water is in short supply in this mostly desert nation. Each housing unit has a metal tank--usually two by four meters in size and found on the roof of the building--in which the water for that housing unit is stored. The government pumps water into these tanks once each week, and if you run out before your "water day", you just have to wait. We have had to adjust to doing our cleaning and laundary once a week but that isn't such a big deal. Although sometimes the flow of the water being pumped is blocked, and sometimes in the summer months less water is pumped in, receiving water just once per week is usually not a problem for us.
This was a problem, though, during our period of guests. For a month we had between four and seven people here, meaning we had to make a concerted effort to conserve our water. This meant sharing flushes, growing a closet full of dirty laundry, leaving dirty dishes occasionally (not so bad) and taking infrequent showers (sometimes bad). Even with all of this, though, we still ran out twice and used nearly every drop in the tank another time. Certainly making the extra effort to save all the water possible is not the greatest hardship one can experience in life - at least we have water! Once everyone left, we flushed at will, did all of our laundry, washed all those dirty dishes and showered two days in row. Back to normal. It is something worth mentioning, though, just because it is one of the many differences between our homeland and our home now.
The tanks on our roof getting water - and overflowing! Although water is scarce there is a lot of waste.
Matt and Amanda utilizing some reserve water for washing.
