Sumur {well}

Sometimes it is the simple things in life that we take for granted. Or perhaps not even the simple things but the basic things.

We have been having ongoing water issues at our house this past week. Our well that provides water to our house (and keeps us from having to pay any sort of water bill) has been having one issue after another.

The afternoon before the first day of school I arrived home to find our landlord standing by the front door, waiting impatiently for one of us to turn up. He quickly informed me that we do not have water and should find a friend in Kota Baru who does and go bathe there. I smiled and listened while he filled me in on all the details of the problem, not understanding 90% of what he was saying. Later my roommate came home and got the complete story. She firmly insisted that we needed to have water to bathe the next day as school was starting. So he brought us some water from his well and we gave up on the idea of hot water showers for the first day of school. Unfortunately, the water we did have was a bit murky. I kind of felt dirtier after bathing in it than if I had not bathed at all. He spent all the next day working at our house and it seemed like everything was fixed. We enjoyed a couple days of normal working water.

The next night, my roommates and I were sitting around upstairs when all of a sudden mati lampu, all the power went out. Not just in our house but the whole neighborhood. We scrambled around in the dark to find flashlights and went our separate ways to bed. There is not much you can do once the lights go out, especially when it is already late and an early morning awaits the next day. As I lay in bed the sound of a guitar playing softly drifted in through my window. My neighbor, also having nothing to do with the power out, was sitting outside playing the guitar and occasionally singing along. I lay there for awhile, unable to sleep, serenaded by the music.

Yesterday we were back to the same water problems- none. We had a couple buckets left over with water so we bucket bathed. This time all the dirt had settled to the bottom and the water was a bit cleaner. I was not in the mood for a cold shower so I heated some of the water on the stove to mix in, creating at least lukewarm water. This evening the problem persisted so our landlord stole everyone’s hoses in the neighborhood, connected them all together, and ran it from his well to our back porch- filling half a dozen buckets full of water.

So for all of you out there with running water and power that does not randomly die, be thankful today for the consistency of these things. They are so easily taken for granted.

And tonight I am thankful for a very kind neighbor who is so eager to help, even if it might mean he gives us all the water he has from his well and is left with none.