What its like living without running water: (Its not as bad as it sounds)

Peter is a student attending college who works for COTN. The job of this eager and friendly Sierra Leonean is fetching water for a houseful of people (that’s us) to use for drinking and bathing. Scott has already become good friends with Peter after helping him with this task quite often. You could spot the two hanging out by the water pipe quite a few times this week – Scott asking Peter question after question about his culture and life. Two or three times a day, Peter carries large buckets down the hill from the house, fills them with water and then carries them back to dump into the large water canisters which sit in the two bathrooms. This water is scooped out with a small pitcher for washing hands in the sink and for bathing.
The bathing process works like this: A bucket of water sits in the bathtub and the small pitcher is once again used – you soak down, lather up and rinse! Using the toilet is also a bit out of the norm, but after a week can you believe that we’re already somewhat used to it? First of all, you never flush pee. And for all other bathroom issues, you pick up the bucket sitting in the tub and pour about half of it into the toilet, which flushes whatever needed to be flushed down the pipe. Use the small pitcher to wash your hands and you’re golden. Now, if this process was being done in an outhouse, it would be a totally different story. But, in this house, we’ve gotten used to living without running water. And the nice thing about there being no hot water is that here in Sierra Leone, you ALWAYS want the water to be cold.

Written June 12