Let’s back up a little bit…
2/17: Water in my apartment is turned off indefinitely; the drought is official. Thanks El Nino. Nature: 1, Humans: 0. For consumption purposes, I purchase two 5 gallon jugs of drinking water, enough to ration for two weeks.
2/18: Before I board a flight to Australia, I take a basin full of crusty dishes out to the ocean and do my dishwashing in the shallows of the Pacific. The waves try to sink my basin constantly, and the current relentlessly pulls the vessel away from me; but human ability perseveres, I even the score with nature, and my dishes are quasi-cleaned.
2/19 - 3/04: Traveling the East Coast of Australia, I feel young again. I see new people, drink beer from a tap, drink water from the tap, shower at will, and do activities on Sundays. It’s a brand new world, and I love it.
My flexible itinerary takes me on tours through five different grocery stores during my two weeks in Australia. Initially, I enter these food stores thinking that maybe I’ll buy a sandwich for lunch, but eventually I just find myself staring at piles of avocados and blueberries and other fruit I haven’t seen in 8 months. Why isn’t everyone running around, grabbing what they can while it’s here? And then I remembered that the act of hoarding food in the developed world lost its popularity centuries ago.
3/05: Five flight connections later, I am back to my parched apartment. The ants and cockroaches have a big welcome home party for me, and then I spray them with a dubiously labeled product imported from Japan. Their party is over.
3/06: My drought-induced morning chores are very 18th century chic. At high tide, I wade out into the ocean to gather as much water as I can carry. The saltwater is trekked back and forth to fill my toilet daily, used for washing dishes, and used to bathe, leaving my body constantly caked in salt. Eating and flushing the toilet become micro-managed processes, not to be done recklessly.
3/07: Questions I commonly asked myself: Are you sure you want to eat some more dried fruit? Can you cook the eggs and frozen vegetables together, then toast the bread in the same pan? Do you really need to wash that tonight?
3/08: Water in the school urinal trough flows like a geyser. Why are they wasting it? Who turned this urinal on? I am frustrated. Then I see a long, skinny translucent worm squiggling through the urinal, and I am thankful for this water not being routed through my pipes.
3/09: I am starting to smell rather foul. I take my soap and shampoo into the ocean after school. Bathing in the ocean brings on my third bleaching experience (not of the 8th grade hair coloring variety) this year. Since the dentist on the island (a surfer from Oceanside, CA) was using hydrogen peroxide and still getting sick every time he scraped himself on the reef, he has recommended that we use straight bleach to scrub our wounds clean. So while a scrape on the reef might sting a little, it is more frustrating than anything, because you know you are looking at a good session with your spare toothbrush and a cup of poison. Leg bleeding, I finished rinsing the soap off my back and grunted back to shore.
3/10: I try the sink faucet before going to bed, and after the plumbing rumbles a bit, some water reluctantly gurgles into my hands. Excited, I make the split-second decision to use this time to shower. I quickly grab my towel, hop in the shower, and turn the nozzle. Nothing. Thinking maybe I can still wash my face, I go back to the sink. Nothing. Every minute is crucial.
3/11: Leaving my faucets on now, with a bread bowl under my sink and a basin underneath my shower, I try to catch the next water period. Around 6pm, I strike gold. I scoop the water and pour it over myself, but it is filthy. I cannot see through the water to the bottom of the basin. A sponge bath with opaque water only made me feel dirtier. Should I go back to saltwater for good?
3/12: No water. I research the long-term effects of bathing in saltwater.
3/13: Today, we received our first good rainfall -- maybe 4 hours worth of solid rain. At 6:45am, I awoke to the sound of water splashing into my precious basin. And after spying a palm tree in my front yard that was funneling rain quite efficiently, I decided to maximize this downpour of fresh water by donning my swim trunks for an outdoor shower.
And now…the water has been flowing through my plumbing for these past few hours, but it‘s still very brown, and as tadpoles and worms are known to be born from the tap, I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of the water from the Pacific.
In other news:
5/07: Coming home…
See you soon!
Ty
Ty
Currently Eating: Cowboy Eggs
Currently Involved in the Following Personal Records: 8+ months without cutting hair, 23 days without shaving.
Currently Involved in the Following Personal Records: 8+ months without cutting hair, 23 days without shaving.
