water, water everywhere and not a drop to shower with

So, a few days ago I received an SMS message on my cell phone from the city commissioner warning of a 20% reduction in water availability that was supposed to last from the 3rd to the 7th of January. I didn’t think much of it… we had had a day not long ago where water was completely turned off for around 48 hours city-wide (it made world-wide news) and we coped just fine. There was one tap in a bathroom we could use to fill up buckets and my bathroom had some water flowing so it wasn’t that enormous a deal. Ok… so… things never quite go as you think here in India ;) 20% is … well, in this case…. let’s say…about 100%… and now it’s been for 3 days … a little trying. We do have the kitchen sink tap working so we can fill up a bucket to pour down the loo for flushing purposes… but taking a shower is not easy from cold buckets of water, and I just feel a bit tired of it all at this point.

The word is today between 12-1pm we might have water. Yeah…. I’ll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile… I’m ready to heat up some water on the stove and add it to the bucket to cut the chill. It’s going to feel nice to have the shower again soon. Small things mean a lot. I still know I live in luxury having these things compared to the building workers families living in tin shacks at the base of my building though. It is all relative.

NOTE: there was no water between 12-1pm..... but the Indian method of a bucket and pail is pretty efficient and pleasant so I made do. Anyway, it'll make that moment of the water coming out of the shower head even more special when it happens.