About water

In a country where water supply as a norm is intermittent, unreliable and of poor quality, our town is infamous for having it even worse. During the five weeks we've been here, we've had running water for a few minutes or a couple of hours only every four to eight days: the cisterns, barrels and buckets in our apartment do run dry. Some apartments in the neighborhood get less, and not everyone has cisterns, barrels and buckets like our Hamest does.

When there's running water, it's an event: we fill the buckets and cisterns, wash the dishes, go to the bathroom, shower, do some laundry — quickly, because we don't know for how long it will keep flowing. People who live higher up in the building don't get as much, apparently.

Even the spring water that's kept in bottles in the kitchen for drinking and cooking has run low at times, but that supply is readily replenished by a car trip a couple of kilometers out of town to some roadside spring up in the hills. Luckily Hamest has a car. And somehow everyone manages, although it isn't always easy. I hear it can be worse. In the winter people melt snow. In case you wonder, Susan and I drink no water that comes from the city supply, and we always run the spring water through the Peace Corps filters. Armenians don't really drink water, except when they use it to make coffee.

Still, the lack of water affects a lot of things: how fast you walk (not fast), when you stick your head outside the house (not during the hot hours), when you wash your dishes (all at once), how often you go to the bathroom (less often, unless you have an outhouse or don't have to flush for some other reason), whether you exercise (duh), etc. And you don't want to leave your home empty in the evenings lest the water comes on and there's no one there to fill everything up.