Tap dancing

On Friday night I returned home from work ready for our usual start of the weekend drinks.

Before I left I filled up my largest pan and boiled it for my customary bucket bath. I wash.

Later I return and go to straight to sleep.  I awake on Saturday to no water.

That’s no surprise.  More often than not Sunday is both dry and electricity free but you can expect either to go missing any day, any time.

I have a big drum of water stored – I use half of it to wash.

So, when I returned from market and there was still no water – I was irritated but unsurprised.

Next day, Sunday there is still neither.  Again, myself and my VSO neighbour Charlie, have come to expect everything to be switched off on the traditional Cameroonian day of rest. I’m even more annoyed although I pretty much expected it.

I just go smelly but by this time the toilets are in drastic need of a flush.  The house is starting to smell like the less savoury areas of a rock festival.  The dishes lie unwashed in the sink and the mice are having a field day chewing away at the scraps.

That night I go to bed leaving the tap turned on in the adjacent bathroom.  If the water returns, even for the briefest moment during the night,  I will know about.  This time I won’t take it for granted that it will remain – I’ll refill the big drum again.

So lying in bed, sweaty and stinky my mind starts to wander.  In Cameroon you tend to blame all problems on infrastructure.  But what if, this time, that isn’t the problem?

We are at the tail end of the dry season – maybe there simply is no water. What if, not just the water luxuriously pumped to my house, has gone?  What if all the pumps are dry too?

What if we really have used up all the water? I start to imagine the horror.  The stampede.  The smell.  The dirt. The illness.

My sleep is troubled.

Water charities – you want to make a lot of money?  Ask your supporters to go without water for a weekend.  Don’t let them wash with it, nor flush with it, nor drink it.  Then watch the money flood in.

On Monday I used up the final couple of litres of stored water to have a very unsatisfactory wash.  I’m horrified to see on close inspection, little black creatures swimming in it.  I try not to think about them  as I clamp my mouth shout and ladle the water over myself.

At work I am delighted to hear that mercifully everyone else has water.  On returning home that night we talk to our landlady about it and she checks and tells us, we’ve been cut off. We hadn’t even been billed.

This morning I washed my armpits in  half a bottle of mineral water, put talc down my shorts and head off to the water company.

I pay our outstanding bill and ask when we’ll be reconnected.

Reconnected?

Yes, you have cut us off.

She asks if I am sure.

I am.

I’m irritated that they did the deed and yet  I am supposed to provide them with evidence of it.  Surely they must have records.

After some confused looks and lots of talking behind the desk they find me a technician.  No big water company van – I have to pay for his and my taxi to the house.

We walk around to where the water meters are and he opens up the orange cage that houses them

No spanners, no tools – he turns the tap.  I can hear water running in the house. It’s a beautiful sound.

Turns out we hadn’t been disconnected, though it’s an easy mistake to make when homes in Cameroon regularly do go weeks without water.

It seems instead that the local kids must have been playing with the taps.

I flush the toilets and head back to work.

Tonight I wash.

* Just wrote this and remembered the Twitchiker – travelling the world and raising cash for Charity:Water.  Inspired by my waterless weekend I’ve made a very small volunteer-sized donation – it would be nice if others could too.