Water Crisis

The night club hotel accommodations seemed decent from the beginning. There was a shower, a toilet, and a sink. Not too shabby. However, shortly after arriving we discovered that the toilet did not flush, and no water came out of the faucets. In broken, Amharic-English, we were told by the owner that the water would come in 2 or 3 days. So to hold us until then, they would bring us buckets of water… or at least this is what we understood from the conversation. Unfortunately, some of the message was lost in translation. We later learned that the owner really meant the town water was consistently shut off and is only switched on every few days. Although the bathrooms had the physical appearance of modern plumbing, the water lines were missing. We were used to bucket baths from living in Nasir, and manually flushing the toilet wasn’t too difficult, so no big deal.

The problem came when they hauled in our buckets of water. It was water straight from the river. At first you think, river water isn’t so bad to bathe with. But, this wasn’t just any river water. It was muddy and smelly river water. And after seeing what happens in the river you definitely don’t want to use it.

On the walk to the market, we had to cross a bridge over the river that flows through town. The view from this bridge was kind of like looking through a national geographic (and a health & hygiene nightmare). Upstream, livestock were drinking/cooling off/bathing in the water, then next came the town carwash that was in the river, and finally many men completely exposed bathing. Among all this, there were people with jerycans gathering water. Yikes!

Luckily, we were able to negotiate with the hotel owner to bring us water from a nearby well. 

After about a week and a half, we moved into some mudhuts on a church compound. Never before would I have ever imagined that I would be grateful to move from a hotel to a mudhut…but I was.

Our stay at the “night club” was very eye opening. The hotel owners’ family lived and worked there. Living alongside these Ethiopians, we were able to get a glimpse of life here. Even at 12 or 13, the children of the family were expected to work at the restaurant/bar. The water crisis was another eye opening experience. I have always seen a need for clean water and I am so happy that Every Village drills wells. However, until this experience, I was not able to relate to the gigantic need for clean water and hygiene training. 

River and bridge in town
 (at a slow time...usually the river is full of people and animals)