WATER

A water pipeline at Maai Mahiu, approximately 30 km north of us, as the bat flies, runs south along the Rift Valley to us.  Along the way there are places where it is diverted into water troughs for cows and goats or a tank for human drinking water.  Najile is the end of the pipeline.  Our house lies a short 2 km north of the end of the line.  We are part of a branch off the main water line that feeds three schools, a church, a demonstration farm, and last of all on the branch, our house.  

The water comes right up to our house and when the pressure is strong it has energy to push its way from the ground up to a 250 liter tank that sits above our bathroom for a shower, toilet and sink.  When pressure is good, it also flows straight up into our kitchen sink.  Pressure on most days ranges from flowing to not even a drip. So it is important to have a back-up plan.  

Our back-up plans: 

-As mentioned earlier, the tank under the roof, above the bathroom that collects water (we’ve emptied it once- that was when we didn’t have water flow for 3.5 weeks because of a problem down the line).  This tank allows us a flushing toilet ( we try to conserve because 250 liters isn’t many flushes), a sink next to the bathroom and a cold shower, if we’d choose. I often opt for heated water bucket bath. Doug has more plans to figure out why the electrical isn’t working for the shower head.

                

                    

            
 Buckets under the sink.  We fill these for general use such as washing dishes, cooking, or boiling for purification.  We dip from these when there is nothing flowing out of the faucet.

Under the kitchen sink

When the water doesn't run, we dip and pour water into the hanging bottle that has 3 holes in the bottom for hands free hand washing.

- Outside we have a 500 liter tank.  Doug has set up this tank to collect water whenever there is flow.  It has a float valve that closes off the water when the tank is full.  The people before us had to spend hours filling buckets from the sink for the next day for washing or drinking or bathing because it is completely unpredictable when the water will flow.  Thanks Doug!

- Our other back-up is rainwater harvesting.  We have a sheet metal roof and some gutters rigged to drain into a 2300 liter tank.  This year the long rainy season that came between April and end of May was so heavy with rain we figured we filled that tank in 4 rains and it collects from only 1/2 of the roof! If we filled our yard with big tanks we could’ve filled at least 6 or more because it was raining every day for at least a month! 

Water harvesting is not simple.  Water that is sitting in tanks tends to go bad.  We had to put a calculated amount of bleach in our tank to keep the mosquito larvae out as well as, other badness.  Because of poor design (form over function), our roof is an especially favored roosting place of a large collection of pidgeons.  This means that their waste gets in the gutters and even with cleaning it out, the first few rains are too soiled for healthy use.  Needless to say, we don’t drink out of the rainwater tank.  We use if for irrigation and clothes washing.  Our 2300 liter tank of harvested rainwater lasted us from May till just last week.

CONSERVATION

Even though we have water coming to the house, albeit intermittent, we are very concious of the need for conservation.  We collect our dish washing water and use it to water our young papaya trees daily.  We collect the water from our showers or baths and use it for flushing or watering, as well.  Even our handwashing water, we collect. 

Kitchen sink

PURIFICATION

Under no circumstances do we drink the water straight from the pipe.  Every other day, we boil a batch of 8 liters, let it sit and cool, the pour it into our water filter.  We fill 1.5 liter plastic bottles with drinking water and keep them in the fridge because they help hold the cold if the electricity goes out, plus the cool water is nice for drinking.

                    

Ceramic Water filter system

Water boiling and cooling system

TOILETS

We have become lazy since the water pressure has been good again and have been using the indoor toilet, but we go through phases and during the day we sometimes use our outhouse (or “long drop”) to keep the water usage down.  We ruefully call this the “lizard house” because of the lizards that scramble into the eaves when we open the door.

The outdoor toilet painted in lovely peach and robin egg blue to match the house!

LAUNDRY

Our neighbor lady comes by every Wednesday and does the laundry by hand. I personally wash the clothes that I'd like to keep for a long time, aka more delicate type clothing and fabrics because the norm here is to scrub hard and wring even harder! This stretches your clothing way out and sometimes can even initiate or exacerbate holes! But, we're grateful for the help for this rather backbreaking and time consuming labor. 

Laundry and shower tubs and a jerry can (in Maa they call it "oljerikan". Seriously.)

LOCAL

Our neighbors all carry their water.  I’ve seen one family that has a wheelbarrow, but mostly we see the neighbor ladies traipsing by multiple times per day with one or two five gallon jerry cans hanging on their back from a strap wrapped across their foreheads. Its a good enough reminder for us to enjoy our luxurious sanitation, drinks, and hygiene!

Dining room

Kitchen