Roughing it a bit

Well, this trip brings a slightly different accommodation experience than the last few years.  For many years now, we have stayed in Kay (House) Alumni which was built in the early 2000’s for guests on campus. In my first few years here, most houses on campus had water for only 3 hours a day—6:00 to 7:00 AM, Noon to 1:00 PM and 6:00 to 7:00 PM.  We alternated taking showers and filled up buckets to be able to—no other way to put it—flush in the intervening time when needed.  In later years, Kay Alumni acquired a tank for the house.  The tank fills with water during the 3 hours that water is available on campus so that there is a supply of running water 24 hours a day (unless the house is very full and everyone goes crazy taking a shower outside the 3 hour windows).  This trip we are in Kay 11.  This is a wonderful old house, one of the original ones on campus built by the Standard Fruit Company many years before the hospital existed.  There are 3 of us here from Health Volunteers Overseas and we asked to be in this house so that we could have more space and quiet to work with the Haitian staff for meetings and planning, and for a meal or two.  Only catch—Kay 11 has no tank.  So we are back to 3 hours per day of water.  Right now we are cycling through the shower and filling the buckets.  We are eating our meals in Alumni House, so there are few dishes to wash, but the few we have are much more easily done when the water is running. (Leaving them dirty risks more bugs.)  We do have a refrigerator which keeps our beverages “coolish” but no gas for the stove and no coffee maker.  So we are alternating making early morning runs to Alumni for coffee.  Not exactly the Wild West, but another reminder of all the small comforts we enjoy 24/7/365 in the USA.  Sleep well.