Out of Water

Two days ago everyone at NPH received this message (more or less):

There is no water anywhere. One of the pipes has ruptured and cannot be fixed for a few days (until the man with the key to the control room returns to work). Until then, use all current water resources sparingly.

WHAT?? Now I know I have experienced a lot of strange things in Guatemala – parasites (twice), our water source going bad, endless camioneta rides practically sitting on a stranger’s lap – but COMPLETE LACK OF WATER??? I can honestly say I never thought I’d see the day. It meant: no potable drinking water, no showers, but furthermore, NO FUNCTIONING TOILETS in ALL of NPH. WHA??? How long was this supposed to last? No. Freaking. Clue. But regardless – when you here that there is no water ANYWHERE…you begin to freak out a bit. I immediately became parched and felt the need for a shower and had to go to the bathroom at the same time. All for lack of water.

FORTUNATELY, per usual, all the information we received was wrong – none of the pipes had ruptured, it was only that the pipes were discovered to be DIRTY and so they had shut off all the water from inside NPH. In addition, the outage only lasted a few hours before they were finally able to turn it back on. Granted, they then discovered that it wasn’t suitable for drinking (and hadn’t been for probably about a month…) BUT nevertheless, at least it was running. Oh NPH – what am I going to do with you?