Water, Water Everywhere....

So, our new place, which still gets comments like, "Man, you really ARE out in the bush" from locals hit its first major snag the other day. And it kind of sucked.

We have our own water, which is basically rainfall that is collected into this giant cistern a little off from the house. (see photo to the right). A smaller storage tank is nearer the house and a pump connects them. Supposedly, assuming we're not water-sucking hippos, every once in awhile we flick a switch and the pump does its thing for about 25 minutes and voila, we have water! We have a filter for drinking water, but otherwise, it is what it is. It's a bit...rustic, like everything else, but this city girl is trying to be a sport!

On our first night in the house, we slept in the only room with a bed (ours was still at the old house, halfway disassembled), and plugged in a fan since it's summer here and gets a bit warm. We had a nice night's sleep with the cool air oscillating over us.

Sometime the next morning, when I finally got out of bed, I was having a drink and looking out the window that overlooks the storage tank. "Hmmm," I said, "It must have rained; the ground's all wet." Continuing to sip my juice, I glanced up at the tank, only to see water pumping out the top of it, spilling all over the place. Oh shit!

Within a minute, we figured it out. Here in New Zealand, their outlets are really great -- each one has a switch on it, so you can switch the electricity on and off. Eco-wise, I think it's a cool thing since I was told that plugged in appliances use "40% of their electricity even when they're sitting there." This way, you can just switch individual outlets on and off at will. And since we plugged in that fan the night before, we had switched on the outlet.

Well, we had forgotten from our 2-hour tour of the house before we moved in, that that particular outlet switch also switched on the water pump. The water had been pumping from the cistern to the water tank ALL NIGHT LONG. Oh, fuck.

Now, the owners had told us they'd done that once themselves, and it hadn't been a HUGE tragedy, just a dumb mistake, so we sort of laughed it off and went on with our lives. I have been pretty conservative with the water overall though, always keeping in mind that it's not an endless supply. It rains here -- a LOT -- but not for several months yet.

Then yesterday, Beau noticed the water tank was getting low and he turned on the pump and adeptly set an egg timer for 25 minutes. But after some time had passed, he noticed that the pump didn't seem to be pumping any water. He went down to the cistern, took a look inside, and all he saw was some damp sand at the very bottom.

Uh oh. That's probably not good.

I mean, that is our WHOLE water supply -- drinking, toilet, shower, washing machine, etc. I couldn't believe it had all been gone. The owners, who had raised 3 daughters on this property over the years, said they had only ran out of water one time in their 25+ years of living there. How had we run out so fast? Could our little pump mishap really have sucked out THAT much water.

And I really needed a shower.

A call was made to a woman I'll call Paula. She's the sister of the owners of our house. She lives just down the road and has been living in that house since birth and so in turn knows our place pretty damn well as well. She's our go-to gal. We told her the situation, she was pretty shocked, but then told us she'd make some calls.

Well, sister hallelujah, she worked fast. She had called us back pretty quickly and said she had a relative who would help us out. Now, in our Maori community, almost everyone is a relative. All the teachers are Beau's school are called "Auntie" or "Uncle" and it's not just a term of affection. This close-knit community thing can really come in handy when you need something done, since you always know someone who has a truck, or a chainsaw, or can fix your drain, or whatever.

"It's going to be the local fire department," she said, "They'll fill up your tank."

No shit.

A couple hours later a fire truck rolled up our drive and backed in near the cistern. Beau, in his typical way, made fast friends with the guy, and the two of them were chatting away as the firehose was inserted into the cistern. Within minutes, the truck was empty. "We gotta go get more water," they said. What? Are you shitting me.

The firetruck made FIVE trips total! Five! That's how much water that damn cistern holds! We knew we hadn't pumped THAT much water out with our little folly.

And the next to the last trip took a few hours (we were hoping he'd finish so we could leave). When he finally rolled up, apologetic, he told us how he had rounded a corner by the bridge, just in time to see a drunken pair of 17 year olds swerve around the bend and crash their car, flipping it upside-down. One had to be air-vac'd out of there. Sheeeeesh! No problem about the water then!

But now, here we are a day later and all is well. We haven't actually paid for the water yet, which we were told was a $1 a K. What the fuck's a K? We hope a K is a big buttload of water, cause 5 trucks of water seems like a helluva lot to pay for. I guess we'll see when we get the bill. Maybe we should start up a raindance or something.

Of course, Beau's colleagues always find our little troubles endlessly hysterical, and one pointed out that since we were living just about a giant river, we had plenty of water if we needed it. Too bad I left my donkey back home in the U.S.