Tanques

Tanques = Tanks

Tanques are the water tanks that are found on the roof of many homes here in the Dominican Republic. They're water storage containers that will give us the appearance and we slightly feel like we have running water when the tanques are full. The water comes to our home here in Constanza every other day. Our host mom makes sure the water is pumped up to the roof and the tanque is filled when the water arrives early in the morning. In the morning, the neighbors call her to the back door to share her water. I think she lives in one of the few houses in the area which receives running water. She is obligated to share the water with her neighbors.

The tanques themselves seem to be like 500 to 1000 gallons plus. (Not real sure about this). Phoebe and I try to fill our 25 gallon trash can at the same time the water comes...then we have water to bathe and flush the toilet until the water comes again. We flush the toilet by dumping about a half gallon of water into the toilet. We didn't know this was even possible until we came here. I bet you could try it back in the states if you want to save water! Occasionally we have the opportunity to use the shower head, but only when the tanque is filled with water and taking a "real" shower is usually very cold. The optional cold shower is a great way to get the blood flowing. Thankfully, our host mom heats up a few gallons of water in the morning so we get to take some hot bucket baths.

As always, please post your comments here. This is an opportunity for us to engage with you while we are abroad. If you have questions, comments, are unclear about something, or just want to say hello; please post.

We had some friends receive care packages from home, which made us think that maybe some of y'all might want to do the same for us! We would love to receive goodies in the mail! Things like movies, books or music on dvd or zip drive, hard candies, chocolate, homemade baked goodies, crayons, markers, construction paper, books, i tunes gift cards, a handwritten note or other fun stuff that you would send to someone in college, or abroad, feel free! You can send items in the fed ex, ups, dhl, or large manilla padded envelopes and they'll be fine.

In love and the spirit of sharing, Danno.