Sabaki River

My parents have been here. My dad could only stay for a week, but my mom stayed a little longer. She just got home yesterday.

To make sure they knew where they were, they got to experience Kilifi water problems (complete with hauling water), getting hassled by traffic police who want someone to buy them a cup of chai, and Mom even went through a 24-hour widespread (seems like it started in western Kenya and spread all the way to the coast) blackout with us. We fed them good food, took them sightseeing a bit, and hung out together a lot.

We took a little excursion the day after they arrived. Dad had read online about a cottage on the Sabaki River. It's supposed to be a good place to see birds, off the main tourist path.

We found the owner's phone number and reserved the cottage: 2 rooms with private bathrooms for $30 (USD). As we were settling in to our rooms, Rodgers sat and talked with the owner (also called Rodgers). As is custom, they asked about each others' names, thus found out who their respective family members are, and determined that the owner of this cottage is (my) Rodgers' uncle!

In the evening, once the sun wasn't so hot, we walked down to the river, near the ocean. We saw some birds and lots of cows.

mural at the entrance

the rooms are on the first floor, the family stays upstairs

on the road

mangrove shoots

flamingos at the ocean were a welcome surprise!

Nate collected tiny crab pincers

trying to watch birds with Grandpa

Then we went back to the cottage for chicken stew and ugali. They don't have electricity, so we went to bed early. 

Rodgers and my dad went back out the following morning, taking a different route, and got to wade through silt up to their knees. It was quite the experience! Since their shoes were no longer wearable, we headed home after breakfast. 

I'm going to talk about water again

Again. Because it's soooooo annoying. Before Ben's birthday, we had 3 straight weeks of water running almost every day. It was awesome! Our water storage doesn't go into my kitchen, so to have running water in the kitchen, we have to actually have running water.

It's been 4 weeks since Ben's birthday, and we've had water one day. And only part of a day at that. Our stored water lasted a couple of weeks.

We talked to someone who works for the water company, and they told us, off the record, that the water company had not paid their electric bill and had been cut off by the power company.

About the time our storage was running dry, people who live in other parts of town started having water running again. Apparently they got things worked out with the power company. But we still didn't have water. For the past 2 weeks, we've been filling jugs at friends' houses and bringing water into our house that way. We got additional 100L and 210L barrels so that we could refill the jugs before they were used up (or we'd have to work out a way to climb up the 1000L barrel and dump the jugs in there).

The water company is not bothered that our water isn't running. We've talked to so many people - plumbers and such - about checking to see what the problem is, since the water company doesn't really care. However, the water company is so unreliable, everyone assumes there isn't actually a problem.

Today Rodgers talked to the real estate agent who is in charge of our lease and the owner of the house, basically telling them that we can't continue living here if the water isn't running. The agent knows we are planning to move anyway, but if he keeps us happy, we just may lease through him again. And he knows we pay our rent in full and on time. So he's motivated.

The owner told us that our water line only serves 3 houses. Maybe that's why the water company isn't motivated to restore our water. Regardless, he said he would personally dig up the line tomorrow to see if he can find the problem.

water

We have had no shortage of water problems since moving to this new house.

1) The water lines in the house were all put in just before we moved in, with the exception of the wall taps in the 2 bathrooms. The plumber did a horrible job, and most of the connections between pipes leak. Into the walls. Onto the ceiling. All over the house. Those have been re-done.

2) The toilet broke after about 10 flushes. We replaced the flusher and a few things in there, but had to have a plumber come out and look at it because it wouldn't stop running. Not running from the tank to the bowl. Running from the tank to the floor. And guess what - there was no shut-off valve. So if there was water in our attic water barrel, it was running to the toilet and out onto the floor. The plumber said there were so many pieces missing (which would control water flow and stuff) that the best solution would be a shut-off valve so that we could turn it on for the tank to fill, then turn it off. Ok, done. Not ideal, but it works.

The 100 liter barrel. 

3) There is no water rationing here like we had in Bamburi, but there will be days (on end) when the whole of Kilifi has no running water. In Bamburi, we had 10,000 liters of water storage. Here, we have 600: 100 in the attic and 500 outside. If we run out of water in the house, we have to haul buckets from outside; there is no pump. Normally, the water flows at night. By using the 500 liter barrel for washing clothes and cleaning, we have enough in the 100 liter barrel to last the day, even if we all take showers/baths. So when city water is flowing, it is enough. But if the water isn't flowing?

Our outdoor water barrel. It was raining, so I didn't go take a good pic...

This week has been a true test of how much water we actually need to have stored. The last day we had running water was Tuesday. Today is Sunday. Our attic water barrel emptied Wednesday night. Thursday evening, our outside water barrel was so low that I suggested to Rodgers we give Penny the day off Friday because we needed that water for flushing the toilet, washing ourselves, and cooking more than we needed our clothes washed and floors mopped.

We keep water in the kitchen in this 50 liter barrel. Rodgers borrowed the yellow jug when he went to get us water this morning. He brought several jugs in addition to filling our kitchen water.

We had spent Wednesday assuming the water would be flowing again that night. We are never wasteful with water, but we didn't really cut back on usage much. Starting Thursday, we conserved water as much as possible, with an "if it's yellow, let it mellow..." policy for toilet flushing and taking what Rodgers terms "desert baths" (just washing the important bits). It has not been fun. This morning Rodgers went out to find water for us because our big barrel is nearly dry. Sometimes people who have a well or tens of thousands of liters stored will let their friends have water during a water shortage. We did when we lived in Bamburi. Now we are on the receiving end.

For now, we catch rain off the roof in our wash tubs.

Our landlord is planning to put gutters around the house which will feed into an additional water barrel.  We are looking into how big a barrel we could bring into the house to replace the tiny one above the bathroom. It has to be small enough to fit through the bathroom door so that we can get it up there (the bathroom doesn't have a ceiling yet). But more than 100 liters would be awesome. We would also like to trade the 500 liter barrel for at least 1000 liters. More water is always better (except when it's all overflowing from the toilet to the bathroom floor...).

There was an episode of Fraggle Rock where the water goes away and the Pipe Bangers couldn't get the water to come back. They sing a song, "Run, water, run! Run, water, run!" I've been singing that this weekend.