Wackyfish

Having lived my whole life (until now) in a first world nation, I am unaccustomed to basic services being (for lack of better words) Flaky. My power has been reliable (accept for during that pesky cyclone) but I live on the compound owned by the power company so it figures. I STILL have no telephone. I think SamoaTel may just hate me. I have just come to accept I may never have a home phone. (I have a physical phone at my house, and in theory I even have an active phone line to my house. However when plugged into the jack I get no dial tone. It has been this way now for about two weeks and for about two weeks ST has been promising to come look at it. They have yet to show up. In resolution see previous entry about analog cell phone).

Water is another story entirely. Once in a while I have water at home. Most of the time I don’t. Prior to the cyclone the water in my district (Vaivase-Uta) was fine. Now it is spastic at best. Once in a while it is on with very strong water pressure. Once in a while it is on at just a trickle (when this happens usually the water trickles downstairs from my outside hose but nothing works upstairs in the house). But most of the time the pipes just gurgle and burp without a drop.

This has lead to behaviors such as water hoarding, and bucket showering. It means no painting, no laundry and no doing dishes. Not that I like doing laundry or dishes, but a closet full of dirty clothes and a sink full of dirty dishes is even less fun.
Running water is something I took for granted before I got here, and shockingly (to me anyway) I seem to be acclimating to not taking any services for granted. When the power was out I just read by candle and eat PB&J sandwiches (no power means no cooking). When the water is out I just do what I can with saved buckets of water or leave all the chores for later and read. Without a phone… I just get along.

It’s not too bad actually. It is simple, and uncomplicated. As soon as you come to accept that you don’t have these services/things, you move on to the next thing. Which in my case is often reading. And hey, I love to read so it made acceptance easier. My life is becoming a process of “What can I do with what I have right now”. Often this gets boiled down to the most basic things, like putting food in my tummy, or having something clean to wear in the morning. It is wacky to say the least.