WATER WOES

A common frustration in our village lately is the frequent lack of running water.  I'm not talking about outages in terms of hours but in terms of days.  Mostly, this is due to the continuing widening of the main road through Chalong (which — when we moved in 10 months ago — we were told would be finished within three months but now looks to be at least another year away from completion!) and the fact that when a water pipe is broken they don't seem to be in any hurry to fix it.

In January, we went at least 10 days over the course of the month without any water (the longest stretch was five days) and now we've gone the past three straight days without water flowing from our pipes.  When this occurs, we have to buy (many) large jugs of drinking water from a guy on a motorbike and use this not only for drinking but also for "showers", for brushing our teeth (and shaving my face), as well as to pour in the toilet so we can flush the damn thing.  I was sick last night (while Tim was at work) and used up ALL of our remaining jugs of water trying to flush.  The landlord usually just shrugs and says, "This is Thailand," and suggests we buy one of those HUGE 5,000-gallon containers so we we'll "always have water" (my neighbor has one and can't even get it filled...).  And, yet, the fancy new fountains at the entrance to our village are still flowing!

There have been many frustrations about living in Thailand these past ten months (changes in immigration policies and a crackdown on foreign teachers, chief among them) but most are soon dealt with and more-or-less accepted.  The constant worries about whether or not the shower/toilet/faucet will work, however, is really starting to wear me down.  I mean, I really would like to do some laundry without using the water I need to rehydrate myself or flush the toilet...