Tadpoles in the water bucket

When I took the lid off my red water bucket in my bathroom the other day, I noticed a few brown dots and bent down to check them out. Upon closer review, I found a few little brown squiggles floating in the water bucket. I grabbed a cup and when I tried to scoop them out, I was startled to see them swim down lower to escape the cup. Turns out, I have a family of worms/tadpoles/minnows hiding out in my water bucket. I immediately called everyone else to come and see and we proposed theories as to how they got in there. As in most things in life, the simplest answer is probably correct: either our “direct from the good well in the village, arrives in yellow jerry cans on a bicycle” water is really “avoid the crocodiles and hippos and take water (including mini wildlife) from the lake to bring to the muzungus” water, or it’s just not as pure as advertised. So although our Rwandese supervisor is recommending the local village well water as totally fine to drink, the presence of visible life in the bucket tells me otherwise. 

Robin & Sarah went back to their rooms and when they checked their buckets, it turns out they also had some floaters. All I could think about was all of the times I poured water over myself in the half-light of morning, the cool darkness of evening… mini-tadpoles swimming through my hair… over my body… in my ears… I instantly became itchy, itchy, itchy, at the thought! 

I held off using the water or bathing until necessity (and hair like straw) demanded it this morning. I managed to scoop out a lot of water without including any wildlife (most had died and floated down to the murky depths), and then dumped out the rest. I emptied my new jerry can of water into the bucket and after carefully searching the water, it seemed like either there weren’t any or they hadn’t had a chance to grow to a visible size yet. I’m choosing to go with the idea that it was a one-time fluke (pun intended). We’ll see what happens tonight when the daily water ration arrives.

We went to Kigali on Monday to sort out some paperwork with the national office and pick up some supplies. While walking downtown, I noticed a lot of large birds in some trees across the street. The first reason I noticed them was the wide circle of white poop on the ground under the trees. Looking up to find the reason for the poop, I saw birds that looked like the love-children of a lonely pelican and heron meeting in the night. Fat and white, they were murmuring to each other, high in the trees. The branches were moving and swaying as they settled and re-settled themselves in the upper branches. I laughed, pointing them out to my friends, happy to be on the other side of the street. 

We turned a corner to go to the store we were headed to, when all of a sudden I realized there was even more white poop on the ground under my feet. In a sort of slow-mo sequence, I noticed the poop, looked up, called out “run!!” to R & S, and sort of started to run at the same time. Just as I started to move, I felt/saw/heard a load from the upper branches making its way through the leaves, down to where we were. Taking stock of ourselves once clear of the huge bird colony in the tree, I found bird poop on my arm, but thankfully not my hair. Robin assured me that to be shat upon was, in fact, lucky. I think I offered to share my “luck” with him, but he declined.

We have started to “cook” for ourselves as of Monday night, but like everything on this trip, its one slow step at a time. We now have a two-ring gas burner in pieces on the floor in our store-room, and Monday we got a gas tank to go with it. Once we returned home, we discovered that the connector cable between the two was missing. Someone had given us a two-burner electric stove however, so as the electricity was on we could still make some food. We have some basic things but not others… it’s an adventure, what can I say. We are pretty stoked to be able to choose the time we eat though, even if it is only ichiban noodles or a cup of tea. The 12:00 lunch – 8:30 PM dinner stretch was a bit long for us, even though after a few weeks we were starting to adjust.

The other night we started decorating the house by candlelight, as the electricity was off again. We had some leftover chart paper and markers from our training sessions, so we each did a portrait of someone else and hung them on the wall using tape. We also made a calendar and some other art for the walls. It’s starting to look a little more colourful and homey around our living room for sure. 

Well, we’re off to the village to find some vegetables to add to dinner this evening. Tomorrow we begin a long weekend and I’ll try to post more about those adventures when I get back!