Kamar Kecil dan Air

C3 has arrived in Waitabula, Sumba! (Or Weetabula – it is spelled differently every time I see it written.) We are settling into our house, which is much more spacious than I had imagined.

As you can see, Chris is bubbling with joy. This job has been a lifelong dream for him and it is actually coming true!

There is so much to write about (e.g. our new helpers: Este and Novi, Colby’s new friends, and the field site Wainyapu and its chief Pak Cornelius). I think these items deserve separate posts. For this post, I will tell you about the delicate situation that is the bathroom (kamar kecil). In my last post, I was hoping for an actual toilet seat.  In the real world, boys and girls, wishes don’t always come true. What we got instead of a Western style bathroom is a traditional mandis. It is nicer than having no bathroom at all, but it will take some getting use to. This is the toilet.

I don’t think you are supposed to sit down. Instead, you hover. It’s like camping. When you are finished, you use the pan in the photo to pour water into the toilet for “flushing”.

To take a shower, there is another section in the bathroom with a larger holding tank and another pan. The water sits in this stone basin in the shade and becomes very cold. VERY cold. Um...It’s quite... shocking refreshing first thing in the morning.

When we arrived, it was exciting to see that the house had running water (Air). There is a faucet in the toilet area, the shower area, and in the kitchen. We share a ground well with the boarding school next door. (Trust me. A whole other post!) Our water is relatively clean and can be used for cooking, washing vegetables and dishes, and other cleaning. Our helpers boil water for drinking.

The water is was pumped from a ground well into a holding tank. Then, another pump brought the water into the house.

On our first morning here, we ran out of water. I couldn’t believe that our small family could impact a tank meant for a boarding school that much!  I decided that it must be washing day at the school. When we came back from the field site, Novi told us that we had water in the kitchen, but only a trickle was coming out in the bathroom. Pak (Mister) Kosmus, our landlord, came over and discovered that ALL of our water was in one of the neighbors yard. Their yard was totally flooded! Apparently, a pipe somewhere under the tile floor of the house between the kitchen and the bathroom had burst. Pak Kosmus disconnected the house from the pump and installed a hose.

For now, we (by we, I mean our amazing helpers) have to carry water into the house in buckets. Pak Kosmus told us that we have three options to fix the situation.

1. 
   
   
   We could leave it like it is.
2. 
   
   
   We could get a longer hose and run it into the house to fill up the necessary basins.
3. 
   
   
   We could buy a holding tank and Pak Kosmus would have it installed and new pipe run to the faucets in the house. The smallest tank is 800 liters and costs about 1,000,000 rupiah (~$110). He claims this would take 2 days.

I think the girls are hoping that Pak Chris (that would be Chris) and Ibu Tina (that would be me) decide on option 3. Pak Chris and Ibu Tina think this option is probably best for everyone, but have to wait until the ATM is working again more money.

Once the leak was stopped, the holding tank for the school and the house filled up. Unfortunately, it didn’t shut off and the tank in our yard overflowed. The flow didn’t fill up our yard, which was my initial concern.  I mean who doesn't need  a nice big mosquito breeding ground in their front yard when you live in a malaria endemic region. Instead, the resulting river flowed down our dirt street and ran into a different neighbor's yard. We are really popular. At least, the local kids liked it.