Mellow Yellow

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing the dishes (at my strangely off-centered sink) and thinking, “It’s so neat that our water comes directly from the earth.” I let the water run freely and without constraint. Our water came from a newly dug well, which was about 6 meters deep- two times deeper than any of our neighbor’s wells. Naively I believed our owner when he told us that our source of water was a never ending supply. (I should mention that our water is NOT drinkable…we go to a neighbor’s house to fill up all of our drinking water!)

A few days later, I turned on the sink to some unwelcome sputtering. Thinking it was a problem with our electric pump (another luxury in our neighborhood) Steve called the owner. He came over, checked the well, jiggled a tube, and announced to us that we needed to be careful because our well was running dry. So much for my “endless supply of earth water.”

We proceeded with caution, but much to our dismay, two weeks ago, the faucet dripped its last drop. Immediately, the owner arranged (and paid) to have a crew open up a new well. However, after a day of hard work, they were struck with a bit of bad luck and hit rock. Well number 2 was a no go!

The owner brought four large barrels to our house, filled them with water, connected it to the electric pump and called it good. Each day he says that he’s going to open a new well in a couple of days….two weeks later and we’re still filling barrels for our water. We’re grateful for our generous neighbors who are supplying us with their water through a garden hose! We have a sneaking suspicion that our owner, who has now paid for two non-functioning wells is trying to hold out for some rain in the off chance that well number 1 might fill back up! In the mean time, we’re trying to use as little water as possible, and yes, we’re letting the yellow mellow!