This week I’m participating in the water challenge as part of my class Affordable Entrepreneurship & Development (ADE). The short version of what the water challenge is that for a week all of my personal-use water must come from outside of the building I live in (so my dorm building).
These were my water collecting implements for the week.
ADE is a class that focuses on creating social and economical value in locations that are considered developing (some locations we work in are Ghana, India, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, and Vietnam). The avenue in which it attempts to do good is by starting product ventures (aka. businesses) that hopefully A. addresses needs or opportunities that people in the area have and B. adds to the economy of the area because the eventual the hope is that these businesses will be run by locals. I’m tried to find something online that would better explain the class but am disappointed by the general lack of resources (if you’re interested in reading more here’s the class description, here’s an example project in Ghana).
Now the reason why we’re doing this water challenge, is to develop some understanding (some people would use the word empathy) around problems that some of our constituents face. Here’s an excerpt from the homework description:
Clean water is vital to life, both for human health and dignity, yet so many people around the world struggle on a daily basis for access. It's estimated that people need 15 or more liters of water per person per day just to meet their basic survival needs, an amount that is easy to take for granted until it becomes hard to obtain. Even for those living in poverty that have access, they often have to carry it from far away and seldom have enough for their whole families.
The only requirement is that you do not obtain any of your personal-use water from the building that you live in, such as your dorm. There are no requirements other than this one explicit or implied. Personal-use water includes shower, toilet, cooking, drinking, cleaning water, etc. If you eat outside of your dorm then you can readily obtain drinking water for your meals there. Please do not do anything that would be unsafe or harmful to you or others during your involvement. Please reach out to the teaching team if you have any questions.
What I’ll be doing is documenting my day to day participating in this water challenge.
Day 1.
I honestly forgot that this challenge was going to be a thing. I found out today from an email sent by Ben our professor a few hours before class time. I definitely panicked a bit. Not going to lie the thought of cheating did pass through my mind, but in the end I rationalized that if this is the shit that people all over the world have to deal with, it’s not going to kill me to have to try it out for a week in suburban Massachusetts.
The challenge kicks off right after class, and right after class I have about ~20 minutes to get ready before I go rock climbing. I borrowed a bucket from the library and rinsed it out before class. After class I speed walked my way to West Hall (which is the underclassman dorm) kitchen to fill up my bucket with water (2~4 gallons?). I then carried the bucket to my dorm East Hall which is basically right next door. It’s hard to walk with a bucket, you kinda have to let it swing or else the water will slosh out after a hard stop. It sloshed out a few times.
I took the elevator to the 4th floor (which you could argue is unauthentic, since I would imagine if a place didn’t have running water then there probably isn’t an elevator, but I could maybe placate you by reasoning that maybe if a building doesn’t have running water, then it isn’t multiple stories high? Just a guess).
Anyway, just came back from climbing and got one of those tropicana plastic containers (~¾ gallon?) from AJ (cool guy) a staff member who lives in the dorms. Went back to WH kitchen again to clean it and fill it with hot water. I managed to shower (though can you really call it a shower, idk), using only the water in the tropicana bottle. It was difficult but doable.
Afterwards I made a “if it’s yellow let it mellow” sign and taped it above the toilet paper in my suite. Flushing a toilet takes quite a bit of water, I just googled it and it takes ~1.25 gallons to flush a modern toilet. 1.25 gallons is more water than I currently use to shower with. There’s enough of a scarcity that I’ve chosen not to flush this resource literally down the toilet, note: I do share this bathroom with two of my suitemates and various visitors to our suite.
Here’s the sign
I covered my bucket with a empty shoe box so it doesn’t start collecting random crap. I might not have running water but I am lucky enough to have clean water.
Day 2.
Peed after waking up and the water was really yellow. I must be dehydrated. Afterwards I accidentally tossed the toilet paper into the bowl instead of the trash. For a moment I considered flushing, but when flushing takes about half of my stockpiled water, I just said fuck it and didn’t. I also chose not to poop in my dorm that day.
So it’s evening now and today went off without a hitch. I’m allowed to use running water anywhere outside of my dorm and I spend most of my time outside of my room anyway.
I devised a genius new way to conserve water. I have this cloth that’s textured like a loofah, so I wet it, add water, and that amount is enough to completely sud up. Actually feel cleaner than I normally do, just because with the loofah cloth I could tell which spots I hadn’t covered yet since they were dry. I think tomorrow I’ll try cutting a few holes into the lid to better control the flow of water from my bottle of Tropicana.
I also remembered that I had a large container that I used this summer for mixing soylent. Now I’m pretty sure that I can maintain the water level in my bucket with my two containers without having to make another trip.
In case you're not keeping track here's a list of stuff I’ve use my water for:
- Showering
- Brushing my teeth
- Washing my hands
- Washing my face
There’s some psychological stuff going on, especially around flushing the toilet. I’ve gone through this entire day and the pee from this morning is still in the bowl. I feel a little bit bad about it since I share that toilet with two other people, I mean part of it is that I feel bad that they might have to flush my pee, but really what I’m concerned about is what they think of me, the pee leaver. So yeah it’s not really the inconvenience of not being able to use water that’s the worst part of this but the hit to my ego. It’s weird to have this constant fear of someone walking into your bathroom and judging you. Anyway the question what shade of yellow would it have to turn before I flush? still remains.
Day 3.
Someone flushed the toilet for me! Now I don’t have to play toilet chicken for another day.
Suitemates confirmed that they’re grossed out. I tried to explain to them to no avail.
I ended up using the soylent bottle to shower. It had maybe 1.5x the amount of water my other bottle had but I ended up using it all up anyway. Guess water usage is just something that expands to fit how much water you actually have.
I was really hungry after climbing so I ate some of Paul’s coffee & chocolate chip ice cream. I was pretty happy during the eating process but bite by bite I realized I would have to wash the bowl.
Washing the bowl took about 6 cups of water, which is probably almost as much as I use to shower with. Good thing I am not cooking or eating in my suite or else this challenge would be even more of a pain in the ass…
Day 4.
Today was literally a shit show.
I just came back from collecting water from West Hall. This means I was at West Hall, went to East Hall, went up four flights of stairs to get to my suite. After arriving I suddenly get this urge to poop, and since I already climbed four flights of stairs I was pretty unmotivated to go back four flights of stairs, poop in west hall, travel back to East Hall, and climb four more flights of stairs. I know, you’re probably exasperated going “are you kidding me…” But at Olin those ten minutes I save could be spent on something productive like watching youtube videos.
So I checked the amount of water in my bucket and decided meh it’s probably enough to flush my toilet. So I I pooped, and grabbed my bucket. I raise the bucket about waste high, and tip it over. When the water first hits the water, it dove in and then the splash came, poop water flying out of the toilet and some landed on my slippers (luckily I lifted the lid). Gross, but at this point I’m committed I need to continue to relentlessly pour the water down the bowl. The brown water in the bowl only keeps rising as I keep pouring and for a hot second I’m almost convinced that this water will overflow.
Three inches before it reaches the top, I hold my breath, the spiral starts forming and the liquid starts going down. Disaster avoided. Unfortunately it was not a clean flush. There was still some poopy water left so Abi went in and flushed it a second time using the handle.
I used up all my water. All of it to flush the toilet, and it didn’t even really work. I am definitely not going to poop in the toilet in my suite anymore.
Day 5.
Today I have a thirty minute window to shower between going rock climbing and going out for TJ’s birthday. To save as much time as possible I decided that I would have to collect my shower water before climbing (so it would have to stay shower temperature for 3.5 hours). I came up with this ingenious plan to get really hot water, put it in a garbage bag, tie it up, and then wrap it in my winter coat for insulation.
It worked and I was able to successfully have a warm shower!
Day 6.
Nothing special, live a pretty normal life without using water in my suite. Used the garbage bag method again.
Day 7.
Last shower out of a container, very excited for tomorrow :)
Summary
Screwed up a total of 2 times. Once when I accidentally turned on the faucet when I was brushing my teeth (immediately turned it off in horror though), and second time when Abi flushed the toilet for me.
Thoughts
Wow I’m amazed that you made it so far in this text based adventure. Well here are some of my thoughts on how I feel about the water challenge. So this week went by easier than I thought it would. Before going into it I honestly thought that at some point I was going to give up because it would be unbearable. What I was most surprised about was actually my creativity in coming up with hacks to deal with my lack of water.
At no point during the journey was it insufferable, and the worst parts were at most extremely inconvenient. Now don’t get me wrong, this challenge definitely did change how I behaved on a regular basis. I would plan out what I did in the day based on when I needed to gather water, and it was definitely a running thought in the back of my mind throughout the day. I probably stayed in the Library more than I normally would on a given week, but I would consider that pretty minor.
To be honest though, this version of the water challenge was probably like running through what some people deal with on a daily basis on easy mode. Below a list a few things that made my life a little easier than others.
- My water is potable
- The closest water source was a 5 minute walk
- That water source had hot and cold options
- I was able to eat at the school dining hall
- There are plenty of toilets outside of my dorm that I could use
If any of the above was changed, it would probably significantly decrease my ability to live my life as I currently can. What would be a minor hindrance would be amplified to an overall lifestyle change, and impact what opportunities I have as an individual (ie. not being able to go to school because I got intestinal worms worms from the water).
Anyway, I am very happy that this challenge is over and that I am fortunately enough to return to a comfortable life where I have running water.
