Water in the Time of Cholera
30 Oct 2022 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wayfaringwordhackLet's take a moment to admire that beautiful, beautiful water behind my feet in the icon that accompanies this post. Sadly, this entry will not feature any such water.
I don't need to rehash the problems we've had since living in this flat, but in case you've missed the previous rants, have memory problems, or are a masochist, you can read a smattering here and here. Some problems are exclusive to this flat, some are tied to the building, and others to the country and its lack of infrastructure/current crisis.
Needless to say, the situation is a mess. Somewhat like this:
That is our rooftop, where individual tanks stock water for each flat. There is a central cistern beneath the building, which we'll come back to later. This is the sight that greets you as soon as you climb onto the roof, and in order to access your tank, say to check the water level or admire its lack of cleanliness (we will also get back to this), you have to carefully step in those openings you see on the right. The clearer space you see on the left is inaccessible until you have reached that gray tank in the center at the top of the photo. Anyhow, before you get to admire that bit of ingenuity, you have to climb this sorry excuse for a ladder:
That broken rung has broken and been repaired several times since we moved in. One time, it broke beneath me. :-/. Thankfully, I had a good grip on the uprights.
Anyhow, when we moved in, our landlord said he had paid the natour to clean our personal tank. She said she did, but did not. Then it turns out, she cleaned "someone's tank, thinking it was ours." Which is BS because she had to climb to the roof many times per week and move a hose between the tanks to fill them, so she knew full well which flats she was filling for. Bon, the tank was filthy and thus remained because she never got around to doing the job before she left, leaving me, ill-equipped, the task of cleaning it during one of our waterless spells.
This is the water we flush our toilets with, the water we wash our clothes with, the water we wash our dishes, bodies, and teeth with...
...
...
My boys look happy to be on the tank because they weren't astride it for three solid houses, moving gunk with inadequate tools and no way to rinse the tank's interior.
"Gunk?" you ask. Yes, this gunk:
Anyhow, that is all backstory to today's post. Yesterday, our neighbor, B, whom we have given access to our tank on the roof--pumping into his tank, too, when we fill ours--came to tell us that the main cistern was almost out of water and we had better start pumping to get it "before someone else does." Which, you know, I don't really like the selfishness of, but B has a baby and is understandably worried about providing for his family. And he is Lebanese and knows the Lebanese mentality.
We turned on the pump, and the water pressure arriving in our tank seemed all right for a while. When J later went back to check, the water was arriving in sporadic bursts. This morning, the pressure was still weird. I, who have been to the building's basement most recently, offered to go down and check on the state of things. Imagine my shock when I saw the secondary reservoir that our landlord had promised to install! was empty and had no pump attached to it. I feared someone had stolen the pump.
While down there, investigating, I saw a pipe leaking precious water all over the floor. Just great, I thought, shoddy work and now resources are going to waste. But that amount of water did not account for all the wetness farther away. Or the smell. Just as I was getting ready to take a photo of some water motors, a great stream of filthy water started pouring out of a sewage pipe, right by the building's clean water cistern. I will spare you the 50-second video I then recorded of this horror and just show you this photo instead:
I don't need to rehash the problems we've had since living in this flat, but in case you've missed the previous rants, have memory problems, or are a masochist, you can read a smattering here and here. Some problems are exclusive to this flat, some are tied to the building, and others to the country and its lack of infrastructure/current crisis.
Needless to say, the situation is a mess. Somewhat like this:
That is our rooftop, where individual tanks stock water for each flat. There is a central cistern beneath the building, which we'll come back to later. This is the sight that greets you as soon as you climb onto the roof, and in order to access your tank, say to check the water level or admire its lack of cleanliness (we will also get back to this), you have to carefully step in those openings you see on the right. The clearer space you see on the left is inaccessible until you have reached that gray tank in the center at the top of the photo. Anyhow, before you get to admire that bit of ingenuity, you have to climb this sorry excuse for a ladder:
That broken rung has broken and been repaired several times since we moved in. One time, it broke beneath me. :-/. Thankfully, I had a good grip on the uprights.
Anyhow, when we moved in, our landlord said he had paid the natour to clean our personal tank. She said she did, but did not. Then it turns out, she cleaned "someone's tank, thinking it was ours." Which is BS because she had to climb to the roof many times per week and move a hose between the tanks to fill them, so she knew full well which flats she was filling for. Bon, the tank was filthy and thus remained because she never got around to doing the job before she left, leaving me, ill-equipped, the task of cleaning it during one of our waterless spells.
This is the water we flush our toilets with, the water we wash our clothes with, the water we wash our dishes, bodies, and teeth with...
...
...
My boys look happy to be on the tank because they weren't astride it for three solid houses, moving gunk with inadequate tools and no way to rinse the tank's interior.
"Gunk?" you ask. Yes, this gunk:
Anyhow, that is all backstory to today's post. Yesterday, our neighbor, B, whom we have given access to our tank on the roof--pumping into his tank, too, when we fill ours--came to tell us that the main cistern was almost out of water and we had better start pumping to get it "before someone else does." Which, you know, I don't really like the selfishness of, but B has a baby and is understandably worried about providing for his family. And he is Lebanese and knows the Lebanese mentality.
We turned on the pump, and the water pressure arriving in our tank seemed all right for a while. When J later went back to check, the water was arriving in sporadic bursts. This morning, the pressure was still weird. I, who have been to the building's basement most recently, offered to go down and check on the state of things. Imagine my shock when I saw the secondary reservoir that our landlord had promised to install! was empty and had no pump attached to it. I feared someone had stolen the pump.
While down there, investigating, I saw a pipe leaking precious water all over the floor. Just great, I thought, shoddy work and now resources are going to waste. But that amount of water did not account for all the wetness farther away. Or the smell. Just as I was getting ready to take a photo of some water motors, a great stream of filthy water started pouring out of a sewage pipe, right by the building's clean water cistern. I will spare you the 50-second video I then recorded of this horror and just show you this photo instead:
As you can see from the stain down the wall and the water motors nicely lifted out of the worst of the filth, THIS IS NOT A NEW THING! There were even stepping stones set up across the "stream" of sewage.
Did you know that there is a cholera epidemic in Lebanon right now? And we have sewage raining down right over our cistern. See that concrete block behind the tank just below the large taped-up pipe? THAT is our building's cistern. :(
We messaged our landlord, explained the problem, pointing out that as a medical doctor he should be only too aware of the health risks. In the ensuing messaging, he admitted that the resevoir he promised to install had NEVER been set up. That green motor receiving all the splash back of sewage is the one that gets *our* water to *our* tank on the roof.
Color me disgusted.
no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 02:00 pm (UTC)That setup, even if it were functional, is amazing. It's just so... 1930s.
The Department of Unsolicited Advice thinks you ought to be doing a graphic novel based on your everyday life in Lebanon. Just sayin'. 😀
no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 02:56 pm (UTC)In Timor-Leste health bulletins, they always talk about cleaning out water tanks -_-
During our trip to the Amazon, I asked about the blue storage bins on roofs (lower right in this photo) and was told they were for water storage:
no subject
Date: 30 Oct 2022 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31 Oct 2022 05:01 pm (UTC)I can't formulate a sensible sentence for the unevenness of what's considered so basic a need.
no subject
Date: 31 Oct 2022 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31 Oct 2022 08:01 pm (UTC)Very basic and yet so many people go without. :-/
And to think we have the wealth to make sure our problems get fixed, to move on to a better place, etc. So many people don't have that luxury and I am aware of that every time I point out these "hassles" and downright anger-making things.
no subject
Date: 7 Nov 2022 03:33 pm (UTC)Could this also be the reason you guys are sick so often, I wonder?
no subject
Date: 7 Nov 2022 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2022 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2022 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2022 04:06 pm (UTC)We have a closed system with clean water running through it, and I still heat up the tank to 65 C once a week, just in case, since we're only two people living here.
no subject
Date: 8 Nov 2022 07:59 pm (UTC)It is TOTALLY a thing.