WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE, or Rather,  NOWHERE!

The Amazon Basin contains one-third of the world’s fresh water.  The Amazon River is the biggest river in the world.  The Rio Negro has to be close behind in terms of phenomenal amounts of water.  It’s officially and genuinely a “rain forest” here.  Yet, we have no water.   

Five days ago, something happened at a water distribution plant.  Something very bad.   Our entire neighborhood and several surrounding ours have had no water for 5 days now.  A trickle comes through the pipes from time to time.  The pressure is so low that a hose will not work to fill a tank on the roof from a faucet at ground level.  Initially it was said that it would take 3 weeks to fix the problem.  Today, an engineer announced that the problem is much worse than they realized.  It will be three months before regular, normal water flow is expected for many tens of thousands of people.  This includes me and my Brazilian family.   

Because a hose won’t fill the water tank on our roof, I returned from clinic today to find the young woman with whom I live up on the roof in the blazing Amazon sun with a rope and a five-gallon plastic bucket.  Her six-year old daughter would put the bucket under the trickling faucet and she’d hoist it to the roof to dump into the tank up there when the bucket was about 1/3 full.  They’d been at this task for hours and the tank was about ¼ full.  She was exhausted and decided to call it quits for awhile.  She took a step onto a tiled section of the roof on her way to a ladder and the tiles broke out from under her.  She fell through the roof and dropped about  six feet onto a partially open door, one leg on each side of it.  The broken tiles scratched one leg terribly and she has a huge swollen bruise at the very top of her left thigh on the inside where she impacted the door. 

I helped her off the door while she almost screamed in pain and terror, and she passed out for a few seconds as I carried her into the shade.  After a small dose of hydrocodone kicked in, I was able to wash the grime from the deep scratches and apply mupiricin ointment and bandages to her leg.  As awful as her injuries are, I think things would have been much worse if she had not landed astride that door.  She has no broken bones and can ambulate, although with a significant limp. 

 

Seems more than lucky that I was there at the right time, with the right stuff. 

This was the most exciting part of my day today. 

Between 8 and 3, I saw 30 people in a church clinic.

I gave an English class tonight from 7:30 to 8:30.

Tomorrow I’m off to the town of Manaquiri again for an overnight stay.  My adventure during the previous trip is somewhat legendary.  People laugh and laugh when I tell them about it.  They’ve never heard of such a thing happening before.