So… I haven’t written in a long, long time.. I’ve been in the city for a while doing my research here and I left to go to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for a week (the city Eric and I went to in July). So I’ve been pretty busy, but nothing very new.
This morning I had more than my average adventures with my plumbing…… basically, I got up around 6 and started my daily routine of heating buckets on the stove for bath water and for some reason thought I should fix my toilet. Yesterday the tank had stopped filling up so I was back to flushing using buckets. I decided the pipe must’ve been plugged up with sand since our water has been pretty sandy. Our water supply is taken directly from the river, with some filtration I guess, but obviously not much. When it rains it gets pretty muddy sometimes coffee colored… so you also have to keep an emergency water supply in case the water shuts off for a while or it rains and gets too dirty.
Well, I climbed up to the water tank, which is about 6 feet up to give extra power to the flush I guess… but, you can get to it by climbing on the toilet seat. Then I started to take something apart. I first unwrapped the string that they used to seal the connection instead of caulking, then I took the main valve that has the bobber thingy on it off. I was right. There was some sort of pea size rock blocking the water supply. I ran and got a toothpick and pushed it out of the way and man.. did the water pour out… (I kind of forgot to turn the main water supply off). But, I was able to screw the valve back on, but not without spraying water all over me and the bathroom… So, I got a shower and my toilet is fixed.
All of the adventure made me think that although I think nothing too exciting has happened here, maybe you’d like to learn a little more about Tajik plumbing…
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