Taking it all in stride...

When I was at the home of Jose Alfredo and Dona Marta (in Boa Vista) yesterday a giant water truck pulled in behind me. I was confused because typically there are buckets of water lining the walls of the house, but I was quickly notified that they were down to one 2 liter bottle of clean drinking water and they needed to buy more.

This is what I learned about the reality of living in the impoverished rural areas of northeastern Brasil:
- It only rains December through June. During this period rain water is caught for drinking/washing/bathing.
- When the dry season comes and the water dries up, plan B is enacted:
- The county government provides 2 hours of bathing/washing water every other day. This water is too salty and contaminated to drink.
- Water for drinking must be purchased from a private compandy that extracts water (untreated) from a local reservoir and delivers it to homes. It is not expensive, but it is not cheap.
- And, this by no means makes life easy.

I entered in to one of the bedrooms which was filled with hundreds of 2 liter water bottles, big jugs and giant barrels waiting to be filled with water. This supply would have to last as long as possible. The only problem was that when we rain an extension cord from the house to the motor of the water truck we remembered that we had lost power about an hour ago and were still without energy. Now what?

Unfortunately, this is not unusual here. Living in the interior of northeastern Brasil I have developed a much greater appreciation for all the things I typically take for granted- water and energy simply being the most recent examples!