Understanding Water

Water is a difficult topic, no matter in what language or culture. Water, because it is such an 

essential component of life, takes on several meanings of its own beyond just the wet stuff. 

Our house in the Dominican Republic has undergone 

several plumbing changes 

since we first set it up to be independent of the city water, many years ago. It had been constructed with an old tin roof, which we replaced and improved. We added big gutters, made of halves of 4” PVC pipe and all interconnected to a 3,000-gallon cistern. There is also a 

250-gallon tank on the flat 

concrete roof of the front 

porch, which, when full, 

provides sufficient pressure to allow for an adequate shower. There is a small ½-HP pump that 

once had an indoor knife switch that turned it on and off, allowing one inside to pump water 

from the big cistern to the small tank on the roof when there was both power and water. That 

pump “burned itself up” awhile back, and there is a pump on-loan from a brother in place for 

now. We purchased its replacement yesterday and should install it today, returning the other 

pump to its rightful owners, who also need it for a similar purpose. 

The rainfall is periodic, and many weeks can go by without sufficient rain to fill the cistern. So, 

many years back and against our better judgment, we hooked up “street water” to our system. 

The “street water”, or municipal water supply, is not one bit clean. The occasional lizard poop 

in our rainwater collection system is nothing compared to the human contamination that arrives 

with the city water. But the usual residents of the house are accustomed to street water and 

were very happy when the water system was interconnected. We all drink bottled water—

Dominican and gringo alike—and for the gringos even the ice is made from the bottled water 

and all the vegetables are washed only in the bottled water. We have never had any waterborne 

disease problem in this house (and any Dominican, upon hearing such a declaration, would 

promptly say, “thanks be to God!” lest such a rash statement bring bad luck—and disease—

upon the house). 

The city sent water perhaps once a week by the city water system to our poor neighborhood. It 

would be sent by district, our district often falling out of favor when competing with the richer 

neighborhoods that would successfully persuade the man with the special wrench operating the 

shutoff valves to leave theirs open more often and for longer. But, when it arrived, it arrived 

with pleasing pressure and volume, for the water main is above us on Duarte, the main road. 

Then the city changed aqueduct locations, not once but twice, and now the water that used to 

arrive from Duarte rarely shows up, and water from the street just below us (Tomás Genao) is 

more likely, though it shows up with much less pressure. 

What to do? Well, Julita, the co-owner of the house, got busy and obtained a connection to the 

water from Tomás Genao via the uncle of an 8-year-old girl who is part of the extended family 

(believe me when I say this is the rule, not the exception, for how relationships are forged and 

maintained, and water is distributed). So now there is a ½-inch line that crosses two vacant lots 

between the street below us and the back door that provides water from Tomás Genao. This 

came to light when we saw the pipe and asked whether someone was using water from our 

system. No, said Julita, this is our connection and explained the shift based on frequency and 

reliability of city water delivery. 

So far, so good. But now, to understand how this new ½” pipe interconnected with the existing 

house system was much more difficult than you would think. David, interested in how the 

various pipes were interconnected, tried to understand what Julita was telling him. Julita spoke 

of the history of the water, of how since the change of the aqueduct the water no longer appears 

reliably from Duarte, how the water comes with less pressure, but more reliably, from Tomás 

Genao. She explained who put the pipe in and the relationship between herself and the person 

allowing the connection. None of this made any sense to David. What he wanted to know was, 

did the water from the new connection interconnect to both the faucets at the laundry sink or 

just the one? 

She said the water in the right-hand sink was from Duarte. That she liked it that way, because 

when there was water with lots of pressure from Duarte (most often announced from the 

houses above ours with the shout, “the water has arrived!”), she could get busy and wash floors 

and walls and not expend the precious water from the cistern in these tasks. But was it 

connected to the water from Tomás Genao? At first she said no, that it was just water from 

Duarte. But then upon further examination it turned out that yes, water from the lower 

pressure system did in fact get to that faucet. It arrived all right, but it wasn’t enough to do the 

cleaning with, so it didn’t count and only when there was water from Duarte in that faucet was 

there really water to pay attention to. 

David was irritated, thinking she was being deliberately vague, because as plumber he was

trying to figure out connections, and Julia was telling him about how the water was used, not in

which pipe it appeared. The more annoyed he became, the more agitated Julita became. She

was trying hard to decipher what it was he wanted to know and tried really hard to answer the

question she thought he was asking. This only made him more irritated, and he turned to me

saying, “she’s just saying what she thinks I want to hear!” Well, true enough, she was trying to

discern what he wanted, but through the cultural filter of water use it was a tough translation to

pipe connections. We finally worked it all out. Relative calm prevailed. Yet both parties are

still shaking their heads over why an apparently simple question was so difficult to fully