Agua

I’ve received a couple questions about my water source (thanks Kloempkens!).  For the most part, the water in Nica is safe—the locals drink it.  Of course with my stomach refusing to cooperate with Nicaragua and their feisty bacteria, drinking unpurified is not a smart option for me.  Therefore, after spending almost FIVE months in Nica (can’t believe it), I’ve used three mediums to purify my water.

During training, my host family was kind of enough to boil my drinking water.  Fairly simple process: boil for five minutes, cool and drink.  An overlooked yet important step: they covered the water while it was boiling because otherwise the water would absorb that smoky/carcinogen flavor (obviously they used a wood burning stove top…).

When I got to site, I, of course, was too lazy to spend my valuable time boiling water (to make a sizeable quantity takes over an hour).  So, I bought agua pura in the giant five gallon jugs.  This became a hassle for two reasons.  First, water is HEAVY (duh!).  Walking five blocks with five gallons of water doesn’t sound that awful until you factor in the 95 degree heat.  Afterwards, I would literally collapse and have to shower.  Secondly, water isn’t cheap.  Well I guess it depends on the perspective.  After purchasing the five gallon drum, it costs roughly $2 to exchange it for a filled one.  Clearly that’s a reasonable price seeing as in the States we will spend $1 on 12ozs (which is ridiculous by the way…).  But I also had to take in account that I drink a LOT of water.  How much?  I could easily drink the five gallons in less than two weeks (over a half gallon/per day).  So I was beginning to get annoyed with this option and began investigating into option number three…

FILTRÓN!  So Peace Corps Nica has a deal with this company that makes water purifiers, Filtrón.  What is a Filtrón?  This:

My water purifier

The picture may not give an accurate picture of how basic this “contraption” is.  Basically, it’s a large clay flowerpot.  Once enough water is placed in the flowerpot, the ensuing pressure causes it to leak through the porous clay.  And voila!  Filtered water.  Of course, the first couple times the water tasted, surprisingly enough, like clay (major design flaw?).  Not to be deterred, after rereading the Spanish directions I found that this was to be expected and that “extra mineral flavor” will soon stop.  And to their credit, it’s already beginning to taste better.  So for being free and minimal maintenance (wash it once a month), this is looking like the best option.

Pour out a little tap water for me, cheers!