old hotdogs

Water is getting scarcer every week. We have had water two days out of the last two weeks. In an effort to conserve water, Alex and I ranked our water usage in order of what has naturally been cut first, from least important to most:

Laundry
Bathing
Flushing
Cleaning dishes
Cooking
Drinking

Luckily, I did laundry right before the drought hit, Alex can’t say the same.
However, we’ve both gone about four days without a bath, the bathroom smells like old hot dogs (it’s me, somehow the toilet smell like rose pedals after she goes, honestly, I don’t know how she does it), and our dishes are piled up in the sink (this is also out of laziness, have you ever tried to wash dishes with a two bowl system? It’s not fun)

We’ve got about seven 5L jugs of water left under a table in the kitchen we use for cooking and drinking. The 11,000L tank that serves our three-story apartment building could be filled tomorrow, could be a month. Until then, we’ll have to wear dirty clothes, eat off of sticky dishes and keep the bathroom door shut.

Guess it’s really all the more incentive to push the solar still project. Speaking of which, the project is securely integrated into our lesson plans: Students are coming up with their own designs to improve the output in my class and are designing a few ideas Nick put together on AutoCad in his class.

Outside the design plans, we’re spreading the project into construction technology, Portuguese and practical lab classes, all taught by Capeverdeans. In the other classes, students are learning how to write a proposal and do a takeoff (material assessment based on plans) and an estimate (figure the cost of a project).

We plan to use these proposals, designs and takeoffs to lobby for funding and build the three new designs in the final trimester.