Water

Today it rained in Utah. I didn't see rain once in Jordan, so I thought I would post about the water crisis in the Middle East, especially in Jordan.

(Side note: I love rain. I love it so much I ran outside and danced in it today because it has been so long since I have seen rain, not counting the airport in Georgia on the way back from Jordan. I guess it is a good thing I love rain so much, since I will be getting a lot of it in Taiwan, eh?)

Crisis is the one word I would choose to describe the water situation in Jordan. First of all, Jordan has very few natural water resources. (I am not a geography expert, and I haven't even taken Chad Emmett's geography class at BYU, so I really don't know facts and figures about this problem. Everything here is just what I saw and experienced in Jordan.) Israel controls the Golan Heights, which is where the water flows for the Jordan River begin, and whoever controls the Golan Heights controls the Jordan River (as I understand it).

Anyway, I don't really think that political and geographical reasons are that intriguing on a blog, so I will continue with my own experience. I will just say that Jordan has so little water that it (the government) bought water from Israel this year. This sort of explains the water problem in Jordan.

In most housing areas in Jordan, the water system goes something like this: instead of water pipes throughout the city, the government sends out a truck once a week to fill up each house's water tank(s), which are stored on the roof. You can get as much water as you want (within certain limits) but you have to pay for all of it, which greatly decreases what some people are able to buy (ie, it is expensive). This is all of the water that you have for that week. If you run out, you have to come up with creative solutions, like buying large jugs of water from the corner store by your house, or (as some of the married couples on our program did) taking your large water bottles and filling them up in places that have a lot of water, like a university.

These are the water tanks on top of my homestay. My host family, of course, were quite wealthy, and have a tank for each level of the house. We never ran out of water as long as I was there, but I was always afraid that we would.

Because each house has limited water, people use water as little as possible (well, they are supposed to, anyway). Showers become a real difficulty. I showered every day, but I did the get wet, turn off the water, soap up, and rinse off method so I would use as little water as possible. I did get to shower every day, but my feet were never in water long enough to rinse all of the dirt out of the cracks in my feet (sorry for being graphic). One thing that I really appreciate about America is that my feet are finally clean!

Most Jordanians, however, do not shower every day. Many of them only shower once a week--Thursday, because the water comes on Friday (not for everyone, but this is common out in the country-ish areas). As you might imagine, a once-a-week shower in combination with intense heat, crowded areas, and the overabundance of clothing that many of them wear (at least the women) did not help very much with the stench surrounding many people (sorry).

Although they have so little water, bottled water is actually quite cheap in Jordan. I could buy a bottle of Dasani or Aquafina for 25 Jordanian cents, which is only about 30 US cents. I was always shocked at how cheap the water was, and made good use of it, as most water is not safe to drink since it sits in the tanks on the tops of houses for a week or more (and that is definitely less than sanitary). My host family had a water purifier on their tap, so that was nice because we could drink the water there.

One other thing that shocked me was how much Jordanians wasted water. All too often (and sometimes everyday) I would see water running down the street (!) or people hosing down their sidewalks with water instead of sweeping them. There is a lot of dust in Jordan (no grass, you know) and so instead of sweeping, most people hose down an area (especially outside) and then squeegee the water into the street. Each tiled room in a building is also equipped with little holes in the ground where you can squeegee your water into. Really I was shocked to see such a waste of water when people can't even shower every day, but I guess it is just what is culturally acceptable, right?

Anyway, for your biblical twist, I really understood, even more than when I lived in Jerusalem, the importance of water in every day life and how precious it was. Stories like Elisha healing the water in Jericho, or Isaac's neighbors fighting over his wells, and most especially what it meant when the Savior spoke of the water of life made a lot more sense to me and became much more significant in my life.

And, for your enjoyment, here is a picture of the desert. This is the Negev, the desert in southern Israel. How would you like to be trapped in that for 40 years?