This week we were without running water for a couple of days so we took advantage of the rain and sent the kids and their friends out to the downspouts with soap and shampoo for their evening showers.
We collected rain water in buckets and were able to use that for cooking, laundry, toilet flushing, etc. We have running water most of the time, but we decided we needed to do a better job of collecting and using our rain water so when we were in Nairobi yesterday Erik and I purchased a 1000L water tank that we had delivered to our home. We then went to a little hardware store to purchase a faucet (or a tap as they are called here) that we could put on the tank to make it easier to retrieve the water. We walked up to the counter and Erik told the man that we needed a tap to put on a 1000L water tank. The man got out a pad of paper and carefully drew a picture of a water tank, wrote "1000L" on it and said, "You have a 1000L water tank." After a significant pause, Erik reached for the pad of paper and drew a faucet coming out of the water tank and slid it back to the man saying, "I need a tap for it." The man nodded and brought the parts Erik needed. I'm not sure what point the illustration served, but it sure was entertaining.
We now have a large water tank to capture rain so I fully expect that the rainy season will come to an abrupt halt and our tank will remain empty until the next rainy season, but whenever it comes, we'll be ready!
