Transitions

Long layover in Dubai

I love the culture shock of coming home.  Even better this year is watching Tegan's culture shock.  Some of the things that have gotten us this time around:

-drinking from the tap!
-eating fruits and veggies uncooked and not peeled without soaking and cleaning - and not still worrying about what is still living on it despite all the precautions
-hot water from the sink (and the shower, 100% of the time!)
-shopping carts - what a fun discovery for little miss (at one point today we used four different ones: T sized, normal, mini, and one with a plastic car hooked to it)
-driving - we both did it for the first time since Christmas break, luckily for my mother-in-law's car it's just like riding a bike
-bread, cheese, mexican food, and beer (for J)
-so much English, Tegan is picking up words left and right
-fall weather in June

A local water spot

Baths, laundry, drinking and cooking water all in one place.  I try to think of this when I want to complain about our water situation.

The trouble with water

"We're out of water."  Turn the tap and it just doesn't come out.  Before coming to Kathmandu I took water for granted; it would always be there when I needed it - for showers, laundry, drinking, flushing the toilet.  Water here is not so simple (though I know that we have it much better than many).

Our primary source of water comes from the city, though it comes intermittently and if there is a schedule I sure don't know it.  It goes into an underground holding tank in our yard.  From that tank we must pump it up to the tank we have on the roof (though that requires electricity which, as I've said before, is not consistent).  That happens once a day or once every couple days.  Sometimes, we go through all our water before we get city water, so we use water that's been stored in big holding tanks on our property.  That water gets piped into the underground holding tank and then pumped up to the roof tank.  If there is no back-up water we call in a water tanker and pay to have our water filled from the truck - we've only had to do that once so far.

Rooftop tank and solar water heater

Reserve tanks

Basically I'm already looking forward to the hottest, longest shower ever when we go home to Portland for Christmas break!

It was bound to happen

Our first run in with food poisoning.  Ug.  Food and water preparation here is crucial to avoiding all sorts of nasty stuff - we had a training session when we first got here.  Soak fruits and veggies in water + iodine.  Eat things you can peel.  Better to go with cooked/boiled.  Which restaurants are ok.  What brand of bottled water was deemed "safer".  Water filters.  Make sure hands and dishes are dry after washing.  Soap, lots of soap.  Etc, etc, etc.  Whew.

So, we are cautious, but we eat out a lot.  And, really, like the title says, it was bound to happen.  Luckily we didn't get hit at the same time, because being sick with a baby is hard.  Just a few days later we are all healthy again.... just in time for another round of immunizations tomorrow.  The quest for health never ends!