So last week I needed something approximating a real vegetable with my noodles. Dinner around here – if it’s not Slurpy Yogurt (real name – which hasn’t been delivered in three weeks) is usually noodles or rice with some vegetable and maybe a little canned meat thrown in.
There are plenty of vegetables here actually, but one must hike to the market (right) to get them and after work, I’m not in the mood to hike another mile through the heat and the dust field. But that afternoon, I went out in search of closer fare. There’s a little duka (tiny stall type shop) near me that sometimes has tomatoes, so I stopped and asked in my best Acholi if “nyanya” is there – i.e Acholi for tomatoes. She looked at me like I had spoken Greek – so I assumed I’d used the wrong word from my Acholi data-bank. I said, so how DO you say tomatoes??? Again – the look – as she said “tomaaaaahtoes!”
So much for using my Acholi in town.
And in that oblique way that my brain works, that brings me to other random thoughts, one of which is “toilet flushing.” Now don’t leave yet – I know those of you with fine, working-order flush toilets in the States may think you have the answer to this. But I assure you, a simple flick of the wrist to push down the lever won’t work here. First, to have such a devise in your home is a luxury – right up until the time you run out of water. I will never take a flush toilet for granted again. First, a friend was kind enough to replace the flush valve linkage with a piece of coat-hangar wire. No, no, no there are no simple replacement parts here. Add to that fact that the cover to the tank’s fill valve jettisons off every time the water comes back on and allows water to spew out the tank flooding the bathroom – and the house – in the process if I’m not home when it happens. Since there is no turn-off valve on the intake, I’m now jury-rigging a bottle top cap for it to wedge between the valve cover and the tank lid. Creativity here is a survival must. In many ways, save the lack of water – it’s like living on a boat. Everything breaks at the least convenient time and you’ll have to use whatever is on hand to fix it.
So back to flushing, one must obviously pour water into the tank, but flushing takes gallons of water and having to buy it and haul it from down the road, one would never simply pour gallons of clean water into the tank. It takes one entire Jerri can to flush a toilet. So here is the procedure:
1. First, wash a load of clothes – or something. There is no shortage here, as everything needs washing all the time – shoes, sheets, clothes, hair, mosquito net…. ad infinitum. Take care to save the water – NEVER pour it down the drain unless there is an abundance of water and you can count on it being there the next day – or the next minute for that matter. And that would be never. Even when “water is there” – clothes washing water is used again, to clean the floors, feet, shoes, etc. – or throw on a fire.
2. Be sure to use plenty of soap, because when you pour the water into the tank, you’ll have lots of suds which stand in the toilet bowl and clean the tank and the bowl all at once. Double duty flushing… We are all becoming experts in how to use resources multiple times before letting go of them.
3. Once the tank is full (and this may take several water-using tasks before you have enough re-cycled water to fill the tank) – plunge the handle up and down several times, because there’s not enough pressure created to actually flush with one movement of the handle.
4. Pray that it flushes, because you can’t do this again until you’ve pre-used another umpteen gallons of water to pour into the tank.
5. Repeat process for as many days as water “is finished,” which promises to be a long time now that it is dry season. This morning we went to refill the Jerri cans after using everything on the fire last night and half the village was there. At times, I hear the money charged for filling a Jerri can is a little like scalping for tickets at the Super Bowl. Haven’t encountered that yet…
Tonight is feeling a bit calmer, but then last night started off normally as well. As we were headed to the market today, a Boda driver hit a woman in the street seconds behind us. There was blood and much commotion and it was a reminder that in this country, some mishap is always just around the corner. But tonight as I write, I hear church hymns (How Great Thou Art) being sung in the back ground and the early evening cacophony is rather comforting.
Something large and winged has just flown in through the window and this afternoon, a clutch of little girls was singing the the back yard of the house just over the fence ( the one that dumped the charcoal from the Sigiri next to our fence last night – starting the fire). I swear they were singing Clementine in Acholi. And down the block in the opposite direction of the church, a trumpeter from the marching band is practicing.
I’m about to close up, burn a little Nag Champa incense for ambiance and to chase away the mosquitoes and settle in. The little mouse that has been inhabiting my suitcase met with his unhappy fate last night, so I think I have the house to myself tonight if you don’t count geckos. And I think I have another episode of Band of Brothers to watch from my flash drive. There may even be some chocolate left!