Monday, February 13, 2006

Sunny days are here again

Finally, after three weeks, the clouds have lifted, the rain has stopped and the sun has shown its face. It's great. Tropical cyclone Vaianu, it would seem, has taken all the bad weather with it to Tonga. (Thanks Tonga, for taking one for the team.) Now I have just one wish:

I want the rain back.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad our mud pit of a driveway is starting to dry out. I'm glad we're now able to contemplate going swimming and snorkeling again. I'm glad that it's now possible for our washing to dry properly. The problem is, I can't do any washing.

Since Friday our water supply has dried up. First the water turned a deep brown. Then it became a trickle. And now we have none. We've broken out our bottled water supply, but it's amazing how quickly you can go through it if you're not careful. "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." is our house mantra. We're becoming very frugal with the use of our pots and pans, cups and plates. We enjoyed a communal dessert out of one of our pots last night so there'd be less to wash up afterwards.

Last night I showered in the rain, and we put our bottles and buckets out to collect as much as possible. Sadly the rain only lasted some ten minutes or so, but it wasn't heavy enough, or long enough, for us to collect much water. At least I stopped smelling unfortunate.

So yes, give me rain. Give me a huge downpour. Let our drive way turn back into a mud pit. Just send me the rain.

But I'm prepared to settle for running water.

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