How’s the water situation?

Hi! How are you? How's the water situation? 

Since moving into my temporary apartment, I've been greeted this way multiple times. In my moving day post, I alluded to The Water Situation, so here's a little tour of what I'm up against. 

Both a cisterna (underground water reservoir) and a tinaco (rooftop water tank) supply my building with water. The cover in the foreground here belongs to the cisterna. It's filled by the city's water supply everyday but Mondays. I can hear the water rushing beneath the surface of the parking lot as soon as I step outside. Like most urban homes and buildings in the Dominican, I also have a water pump (inside the built-in structure in the background) to pressurize the city water, helping it get from the cisterna to my (2nd floor) faucets and fill my tinaco.

Unlike most homes and buildings, though, I'm captive to the pump in that it needs to be turned on and off by flipping the switch on the back wall, to the left of the grey tank, with the length of PVC pipe sitting on the roof of the structure. It's about a 30-second process The water pump should self-regulate and not run constantly if a) the tinaco is full; and b) no one is showering, doing laundry, etc. In my case, though, there's a slow leak somewhere in the bowels of the building, so as the pump is pumping, water is escaping. Leaving it on indefinitely could burn out the motor and create a fire hazard. 

Let's turn the pump on!

This is my tinaco. I can check the water level at any time by lifting the lid and peering inside. There's a float (like the one inside a toilet tank) that stops it from overflowing. 

The red lever on the pipe coming out of the wall controls the tinaco. In this photo, it's in the off position, which means I'm using city water. I flip the lever when the pump is off but I want to increase the water pressure, or on Mondays when I just want something to come out of the faucet. Because of the leak, though, a full tinaco will eventually empty on its own even if I never draw from it. 

Clear as mud? Thought so. 

Let's just say I have a whole new level of gratitude for mundane things like doing dishes and flushing toilets. And for the bottomless water Source that quenches like none other:  

Jesus said to [the woman of Samaria], “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

I was about to write that today is Monday, so like Cindy (my former apartment-mate who left the field less than a week after I moved in) would always say, I guess I'll just pretend I'm camping. I'm starting to doubt the Monday thing, though; I just heard the toilet tank fill so I'm going to go grab a shower while I can!

Until next time, blessings!