Water? What water?

It is really easy to take something like running water for granted. You might think that missionaries like our friends Kemmel and Lisa in Guatemala would have problems with running water, but not missionaries in a city of approximately 3 million people!

On Thursday of this week most of the city of Porto Alegre was without water! In fact, we read in the newspaper on Friday that 38 neighborhoods were lacking water. We didn't find out that there was a water problem in our house until late Thursday night when the toilet wouldn't flush. What a great way to find out that you are out of water! I went out to the street to see if it was our problem or a neighborhood problem. Our meter was on, but it wasn't running. I then went up into our attic to check our water reserve "caixa" or box. It was practically empty.

Most folks have a "caixa" or water reserve on the roof of their house like the one in the picture above. Our "caixa" is in the small attic of our house (pictured below).

Friday afternoon the water finally came back on, but we are still having problems. There is only enough pressure to wash our hands and brush our teeth. Our water reserve needs to fill back up so that we can have water pressure to take baths, flush toilets, do the dishes, etc. It is quite the problem to have.



We have been able to handle the situation by using the extra shower (with an electric shower head) in the garage and by trying to be extra conservative with the water that we do have. Hopefully, by the end of today or tomorrow morning we will be back in good order with the water situation.

This is our extra shower that
doesn't get used often!