How The Water Works

When we got the call to teach in Alaska, the first thing they did was ask if we were still interested in coming to Alaska, the second thing they did was tell us that there was no running water in the housing we would be in if we were offered the job. "With that being said are you still interested in taking the job?" 

Really in the grand scheme of decision making, the fact that they had no running water didn't weigh heavy with us. The people here live with it, all the teacher's live with it. It is what they know.

Not that I enjoy not having running water, but I do enjoy knowing that I am not wasting water. (I also feel a little Laura Ingelsish!) The students and everyone here is very aware of the water situation. When my second graders wash their hands they turn the water off when they get soap and back on to rinse. When someone has the water on for a long time, the others will turn around and tell them to turn the water off, "we can't waste it!"

Families here can go to the Washateria to shower and wash laundry... to wash and dry a load of laundry is $16 so you can imagine that it isn't done extremely often. In the elementary school every class has a certain time one day a week where the children are allowed to shower in school. Parents come in to volunteer supervising and thus get a free shower as well. I have only had one shower day so far but the kids were so excited about it.

I don't know about everyone but Mike and I, and most of the houses I have seen, have what is called a cistern. A cistern is basically I giant plastic barrel that holds water. Our cistern holds 300 gallons of water. To get water into your cistern you are supposed to get a truck, take a sort of travel cistern, drive to the Washateria, use a hose to get water from the Washateria (I think it's about $4 for 50 gallons), roll the hose back up, drive to your house, and pump the water into your cistern, then take the cistern and truck back.

Mike and I are lucky; since we live right across from the school we can attach a hose to the school and run it straight into our house. Our neighbor has a hose on his porch and he lets us borrow it and the key to the water. It takes about 45 minutes to fill our cistern.

The water runs from the cistern through a water pump and pumps it into pipes so it is basically like we have running water for sinks and showers. We are very aware of how much water we are using. For example, it takes about 15 gallons of water for a 15 minute shower. We use minimum water when washing dishes. It feels like we have running water, we just have to fill the tank every 2 - 3 weeks. (We met someone who said they will fill the cistern any time for $15, which we might take up when it is 40 below!)

The biggest difference in our plumbing life is that we have no flush toilet. We have what is called a honey bucket. You kind of get used to not using the toilet at anyone else house and no one really asks at our house (except the kids, who don't care haha but we still don't let them) "I have to use the bathroom!" "Well, you can't go here, you have to go home..." "Never mind!"

The bathroom doesn't have a heating vent so it is very cold but it helps it not smell. Basically, a honey bucket, is a bucket... with a garbage bag in it... and you put a plywood box with a toilet seat on it around it. About once a week, if it's getting full, or starts to really stink, we empty it. (I know this is gross, but you're only reading it! We live it!)

Mike and I had a lot of debates/discussions about how the emptying of the honey bucket should go. I was all for him doing it but we found a happy medium; I pick the plywood box up and take it off the bucket and tie the garbage bags (one bag wasn't enough, two seems to do the trick. we buy extra durable, odor blocker bags.) then carry the bucket from the bathroom, through the living room, and into the arctic entrance (I do not know how to spell it but the room is called a kunituk, I will explain this later) Mike stands in the doorway preparing to take the bucket outside. He takes the bucket to this bin sort of thing, which is about 15 feet from our doorway, where he dumps the bag with our business into it. When ever this bin gets full we call the city and they come and empty it. Thank goodness that's not my job! The first part of this process makes Mike nauseous, while the second part makes me nauseous so it evens out.

After our business is out of the house, the smell is not, so we usually leave the windows and door open and light a candle. I then usually spray the inside of the bucket with some kind of bleach cleaner just for good measure, wait for it to dry, load the garbage bags, put it back in place, and we're good to go!

The school has gym showers and washers and dryers that we are allowed to use. At first we tried taking showers at the school to preserve our water but we then decided that taking all our shower stuff, getting dressed, walking through the sand, showering, and walking back was more work than just filling our cistern when it was empty. We do do our laundry at the school though, our night is Tuesdays from 4:00 to 8:00 PM! Oh Boy!

The honey bucket, we now have a nice shower curtain for the shower and bathmat for the floor!

  

Don't worry! This picture was taken before we used the honey bucket even once. You can see it is ready to go, loaded with the garbage bags.

You can see our water cistern in our  kunituk here. This is one of our frequent visitors, she is in 4th grade and came over when we were getting water and decided she wanted to help.

Thank you for your help!

This is the view from the top looking down into the cistern as it is being filled. You can see all the sand on the bottom. The sand pretty much just sits there but we still filter our drinking water just in case!

The hose running from our house to the school. Mike is up there turning the water on, you can see all the kiddies who were excited we were out and followed him up to see what he was doing.

Soooooo, we learned there is a hole towards the top of the cistern that once the water gets that high starts to leak... apparently the duct tape that was over the hole doesn't hold the water... 

Mike ringing out the water from the water on the floor from the leaking cistern. Once we realize it was leaking I started doing dishes ASAP. We figured that if the water was going to come out we should try to use some of it up on something useful.