Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Water Issues

Every now and then something happens that makes me think, "If I ever leave Kazakhstan, it won't be because of the -40 degree winters, it will be because of this..." Having heat that is controlled by someone other than me is one of those issues. (They don't turn on the heat until a certain date, regardless of how cold it gets!) Water problems is another.

As far as I can tell, everyone living in Astana can expect to have water issues, regardless of who they are or where they live. Your water will get turned off at least once a year, for a minimum of one day, a maximum of who knows? You will wake up one day to no hot water, only cold (and ice-cold at that), and, again, this will happen at least once a year for at least one day. If you are insanely lucky whoever's in charge will time it so that this happens while you are at work. I've only met one person who's been so lucky, and she hasn't lived at her current apartment for long. So maybe her luck will be short-lived.

If you live in Astana, you may possibly find one day that you don't have COLD water. I have no idea how they manage to do that.

And, of course, the water coming from your tap will not always be clear or mostly clear. It may be brown. It may be neon yellow.

Usually, if it's brown, just run it a bit and then it'll be okay. But sometimes it'll last long enough to be incredibly annoying.

One afternoon, I noticed that the toilet water was brown. That didn't phase me, whatever, it's just there for flushing. I didn't think about it until I tried to do the dishes--the kitchen water was brown. I let the water run for a long time. Still brown.

Then my load of laundry finished. As soon as I'd come home from work, I'd put in a load of whites. Yes, whites. They came out brown.

So I was unable to wash the dishes and now I had a bunch of brown clothes. Lovely.

I posted my misery on facebook, only to have the principal's wife respond that once, her water was neon yellow. Somehow, brown seems better than that.

The next morning, my water was thankfully back to normal & I could take a shower. Earlier this year I had found bleach (labeled 'bleach' in English) and that worked to fix my whites. So resourcefulness, laziness, and patience solved this problem. (Yes, laziness helped--after a few moments of distress about not being able to wash the dishes, I settled into laziness & didn't wash the dishes.)

Yesterday morning I woke up to no hot water. I'm used to this by now. Sometimes, I just have to let the water run for longer. Sometimes, I have to boil water in my kettle or on the stove and take a sponge bath of sorts (I don't have a bathtub). I was running late yesterday, so I took a cold shower. I told myself I could live through this, but it was ice-cold! (But, yes, I did apparently live through it.)

Yesterday evening I still had no hot water, and this time resourcefulness kicked in and I boiled water for washing dishes. This morning I was prepared and not running late so I boiled water on the stove for my sponge bath-shower.

This morning I talked to the school secretary (who handles all our housing issues, amongst other things). She recently married a co-worker and they both moved into my building, which is wonderful for me, because it means that if I'm experiencing distress over water issues, so is she. She can sympathize. And she had already called about the lack of hot water, and had been told that it should be fixed today.

This afternoon I came home and had hot water! (Along with cold, of course--the good, ol' fashioned choice--hot? or cold? or something in between?)

But my refrigerator wasn't working.

Argh!!!

But that's for another post...

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