Oct
19
Water Woes
October 19, 2007 |
We woke up to find that we still have no running water. The last time it was on for a few hours but that was 3 days ago. So Nan motored over to her uncle, the head man of the village, and when he saw her face, he simply handed the keys to the pump house over to her.
The village waterworks is owned by the local temple. And the water tower and pump house sits on the grounds of the Wat. The village is then responsible for maintaining the system that distributes water in the village. The pump house is by the river. And the valve that opens the water to be pumped up into the water tower is currently in a flooded area. Now this had to be opened.
Nan was wearing pants today, and did not feel like wading out into the water to turn the valve. So what happens? Yeah she enlists the old monk in residence at the temple to do it for her. She is having an aging monk, wade into the water, that is chest deep to turn the valve. I wish I was there to take pictures!
Anyway, the system pumps the water into the tower does not have an automatic shut off device. So when the tank is full, ot overflows. So they shut it down every time it is full. So when the tank is empty, no water. And someone have to go and get the key from Nan’s uncle, to start it all again. I can’t really understand why this is. Even the water tank for my toilet has an automatic shut off valve. But Ok, that’s just the way it is, and I can’t do anything about it. Mai bpen rai.
Of course this happens every second day or so, and when the water comes back, everyone in the village tops up their hong nam water tanks, and the water tower is empty in a few hours. Then of course everyone have the water they need, and nobody goes to start the pumps to fill up the water tower again, until someones hong nam water is empty. When you add that to the fact that all the water pipes are PVC, buried about 2 millimeters into the ground, and those break frequently, you’ll understand that running water here is quite an unreliable source. Even with two rivers running right next to the village.
So everyone, including us have big water jars, holding at least 2 tons of water each to collect rain water from their roofs. We have 3 of them, but ours are empty as we have no gutters installed to collect the rain water for them at the moment. We’ll have that installed now. But of course now the dry season is about to start. However we also have a water well on the property, so I guess we have to buy a small electric pump for that when dry season starts.
We’ll also purchase a couple more of those 100 liter plastic containers to store water in the hong nam. Looks like bucket showers is something I will just have to contend with. At least I’ll be taking them in a clean, tiled room, with no bugs in the water.
I motored over to the village shop this morning and found that the shopkeeper who speaks English and most of the time is a very friendly man, was not there.
This meant that I had to deal with his less than polite wife. The one that called me “farang pee bah” - crazy farang, for mixing up a sentence in Thai the last time I had to deal with her. But I found her in a good mood today, and she literally beamed at me when I only spoke in Thai while I was in the shop. And for once I remembered all the words, and spoke them correctly in the right grammatical order. She even complimented me for it. So there’s one victory won.
Yeah, village life in Isaan is interesting and I learn as I go here 
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Comments
3 Comments so far
You have your own well on the property? DUDE you better be on that now.
Ive been talking to a guy here who has a place in Buri Ram (spellin?) he said he pays the guys who run his fish farm 200 baht a day and thats good money. Its no wonder the water and such is as it is.
Everyone here has one of those. I guess they where more in use before they had the running water system installed.
Nan’s mom has an electric pump she uses to fill up the hong nam water basin when there is no running water.
Well, we’ll see. Nan is not so interested in spending money on it since her mom already has one. And we can use that in a pinch.
Nothing like being independant of others….Oh yea, it takes a village,LOL.
I guess thats the “American” (pre New World Order American) in me comming out.