Two hydrogens and an oxygen that tried to be milk and coffee

Water. It’s a hot topic all around the world. And when you’re in the Peace Corps, even hotter. Since arriving in Costa Rica, I have only been drinking boiled water. They say the water here is safe, but every now and then there can be a bicho in it that could very easily make you sick. So for now, I continue to boil it, like they recommend. But that’s not the point of this story. The point is the following: I never know what’s going to come out of my faucet.

Last week, I woke up, bleary-eyed one morning and headed to my (private) bathroom still half-asleep to brush my teeth. I turned on the faucet and pouring out came what looked like muddy flood runoff or slightly watery coffee. Costa Rica being the land of coffee, the latter didn’t seem too impossible. It woke me up rather abruptly and I questioned my host family. They seemed to believe that this was a common yearly occurrence after Holy Week here…something having to do with cleaning out some sort of pipes or system (at least that’s what I understood in Spanish). So we just waited it out and drank the next run of clear water. Earlier this week, I went to wash my face in the bathroom, and this time milk came out. Okay, not milk literally, but the water was as white as milk pouring right out of the faucet like you could just hold a bowl full of granola below it and grab a spoon. Instead, I washed my face with it, and who knows if it made it cleaner or dirtier, but I wasn’t really hungry for granola. Finally, two nights ago, nothing came out of my faucet. Nothing. No water to be found…not even milky nor muddy. No one in my host family was sure why, and no one else (neighbors, etc) was experiencing this. We just waited it out (it lasted about a day or so), and though it didn’t last long, it seemed much longer. And finally finally, on the topic of ‘no water’, this morning, in the shower halfway through, my high pressure, rain-shower-like showerhead slowed to nearly a dribble and turned scalding hot. I quickly finished and proceeded on with my morning in my regular fashion.

After such incidents of surprise lately by what does (or doesn’t) come out of my faucet, I have really begun to appreciate water. Pure, clean, clear water…something we maybe take for granted in the US to always flow clear and potable with the turn of a knob. But since being here I have learned a lot about and appreciated water (I don’t even have it nearly as hard as my friends in the Peace Corps in other parts of the world). So, even though my water may have bichos in it, I can just boil them out; If it’s milky or muddy, I just have to be patient and wait till it runs clear again; If there is none, let’s hope I didn’t just go for a run or hope I have some boiled reserve in the fridge to drink. It’s that simple.

Soon, the water will be flowing plentiful, but this time from the sky.

And it won’t stop until November.