Where, oh where is the water?

On Saturday night, Thalia turned to me and said that our sink wasn’t working.  I didn’t really think about it – I’m not really sure what I thought was wrong, but I was tired, so I just went to bed.  Sunday morning, we woke up and there still wasn’t any water.  So, I went to go find one of the sisters to see what was going on… only to find out that our water tank was empty… there was going to be no running water for the day.  This meant that sinks, toilets, ect. would not work.  So, I was given a bucket, shown where the water reserve behind the kitchen was (it still had water – the water reserves aren’t really wells, more like a cement water holder that is located underground), shown how to retrieve water from the reserve, and was on my way.  We were able to use that water to flush the toilet, wash our hands and face, ect.  throughout the day.  And if we needed more water, well we could go fetch more (but try to conserve the water). 

Sunday night, we returned to our room with two buckets of water waiting for us outside of our door.  Thanks to whoever thought of us, cause otherwise we wouldn’t have had any water  that night or Monday morning!

Monday morning I had the pleasure of taking a bucket shower (but I didn’t wash my hair… I’m not entirely sure how I would have gone about doing that either).  It truly was an experience, not bad, but I sure am glad that I now have a working shower!  The water tank was refilled later Monday afternoon, so we are back to normal working water.  But if there is one thing that I have learned while I have been here is just how much I take for granted at home. 

On another note, on Saturday I saw Sor Xiomara teaching some of the girls how to make bread from scratch without a bowl or a hand mixer.  I really wanted to join in, but I had just come back from a run and didn’t want to get the bread all sweaty.  I’ll have to join in next time, but I’m going to try to explain what I saw:

First, they mixed all of the dry ingredients in a large container and then poured them out and split it in two piles on a very large table (I’m assuming to make two different batches).  Sor made a ring with one half of the dry ingredients and cracked the eggs, opened sticks of butter, and other wet ingredients (minus the water).  She then started hand mixing the dry and wet ingredients together by pulling the dry ingredients in from the ring surrounding the wet stuff.  They then slowly began adding water to the mix and continued pulling the dry ingredients in.  Since there was no bowl, the ring of dry ingredients acted as the bowl.  After everything was mixed together, Sor split the dough between the girls to kneed.  However, this was no kneeding I have ever seen.  They threw the bread down onto the table and then stretched it out, wadded it back up into a ball and threw it onto the table again.  It was really interesting to watch!

Anywhoo, that’s all for now.  Love to everyone at home!