Hydrogen Dioxide

So I realized recently that I haven't really said much about how we get and use water here in Ukarumpa. It's actually a neat system. Almost every building has a water tank or two outside, with all the gutters and downspouts running into it to collect rainwater. Here's a picture of a typical tank:

The tank acts like an above-ground well, with a pump drawing water out as necessary. The water in the tank is not always sufficient to cover all the needs of a household, so we need to keep an eye on it and switch to a ground water source from time to time. (commonly known as the RAM pump, which serves the whole centre, and draws somewhat murky water from a site nearby)

Neither of these sources is very sanitary for drinking, so most households have a water purification system in a large bucket for drinking water. Everything else is done with untreated water.

For hot water, most houses have a solar water heater on the roof, which uses the sun's warmth to heat the water going through it. Obviously this works best on sunny days... but it will still be at least warm after a cloudy/rainy da y or two. Some houses have electric heater backups to make sure there is enough hot water for the demand. The picture of the solar heater below was actually taken at my hotel in Port Moresby, but there are identical units all over the place here.

There is a legal issue with the RAM pump at the moment, because it is located on property owned by a neighbor to the SIL centre here. I may have mentioned this before, but land ownership and property rights are big deals around here. Well, this neighbor decided that he didn't like leasing part of his land to SIL for the pump anymore, so he threatened to damage it, and now there is a court case about it. We're currently in the process of creating another ground water source on centre, which will either serve as a backup to the current pump or will replace it, depending on the final outcome. This is another area that could use some prayer.

Apparently at one point, there was even some tribal fighting over this RAM water issue, with some nationals supporting SIL and defending the pump against this landowner and some of his friends. Most here are on our side, even many members of his line (ie. family/tribe), and we are coming up with another source of water, so it shouldn't affect SIL too much. But pray that this doesn't become a long-standing barrier between the two sides, so that the work of evangelism is not hindered.

This post was originally supposed to go up on Thursday, but I was having some connection problems. I'll be back later today to update you on the weekend.