How do we get water here?

In America you never have to worry about running out of water. Occasionally if a hurricane comes through you might, but for the most part you don't even think about it when you turn on your faucet. You just expect that water will come out. Here in Nepal we do not have that luxury.

 

This is our main well. If I understand everything correctly every 9 days the water management people send us water through underground pipes to this well. This tank has never run dry although I've heard of others running dry and having to order a water truck to come deliver more water. But thankfully we have always had water in this tank.

However that doesn't mean we always have it in the house. We have to pull water up out of the well into this large black tank. We can only do that when the electricity is on. Right now we have quite a bit of electricity each day, but during winter and spring we would run out of water in the house because the big black tank ran dry. Lately, it has been fine.

We are blessed with a water filtration system. It doesn't filter well enough for us to drink the tap water, but it does a really good job. In almost 5 months we have only gotten water sickness maybe once. You can get water sickness from one drop of bad water. So considering showers, food, washing dishes and things and only getting sick once, I think that is pretty good.

To pull up water you have to have electricity. For those who don't have a water filtration system they only have to press this button. But I start here.

Next I go to the back of the house and turn the filter to backwash.

This is what comes out. I have to let it run about 10 minutes till the water runs almost clear.

Then we turn it to rinse until it runs really clear. About 5 more minutes.

Then I turn the handle back to filter. Now I have to wait about 30-40 minutes while the big black tank fills up. Then I can turn the light switch off.

It's not too hard, you just have to remember to go and do it, or you will run out of water and that is not fun. If you let the water get to low the yellow water will come through the faucet, or even worse into your washing machine. I didn't realize we were almost out of water and washed our white sheets in that yellow water. Needless to say, we now have ugly yellow stained sheets. 

But overall it's not bad, it's just different!