May 6, 2006: Living up to my name

Yes, I’m living up to my name, my old nickname, that is, given to me by my brother so long ago: Scrub. Not only is there no hot water, there is now no water, period. I’m pissed. I thought it was bad the other day when I boiled water in a pot and took a ghetto sponge bath. But, today proves that situations can always get worse.

Fortunately, Victoria’s boyfriend intervened on our behalf and the water problem seems to be resolved, for now. I don’t trust it at all. Most of Amman doesn’t have city water lines. Instead water is stored in tanks and water trucks come and refill the tanks every few days. If your tank goes dry, there is usually a reserve tank, but switching to the reserve tank is not an automatic process. I realize suddenly that the entire city is run like an RV park. I watched, horrified, as the last drops of water dripped out each faucet and then dried up. I was so excited when I had overlooked one of the faucets in the kitchen and was able to get half a pot of water out of it. I will never take water for granted again.