An interesting evening stealing water is currently in the final stages i.e Using the water. If you remember from a few weeks ago, and my attempt to flood the garden, the water supply (and usage) here is rather different from England, or Japan, or even in Jason’s village 20minute walk away.
Simply, the streams that run off the mountains flow through the village and are channelled along the roads. As the village is set out in the grid pattern, the houses are also always facing a road, and therefore water. Everyone then has a pipe leading from the channel, into their garden. This is unblocked when water is required, and re-blocked when the garden is flooded! This is in theory anyway, as what must have been a simple Communist idea of sharing water, is not without its problems. Namely, that some people use a lot more water than others, which therefore effects the water levels. This then requires certain channels to be blocked, to provide adequate water levels in others.
This is what has lead to my (and mother along this time) midnight water stealing trip. There was insufficient water in our channel, so we went off on a hunt to close all the open pipes and channels in an attempt to improve this. And we did, although due to the lack of rain here (it has only rained once in the past month), the water level is simply low. I couldn’t help feeling like we were doing something naughty (which we weren’t, as we were just taking water that we are entitled to), although doing it at midnight, with torches, certainly made it feel like it.
The other problem with the system, as I have already shown, is that sometimes the pipes and channels are really difficult to block!
Here is a rough drawing to hopefully explain what I am talking about. The green squares are houses, the blue is water, the black is roads, and the red are blocks that are put into the channel, to ensure the best water pressure for yourself.
As you can imagine, this causes problems, if people feel it is their turn to get water, and there doesn’t seem to be a time-share approach in use (there may of in Soviet times, I don’t know). Indeed, in my first week, I saw one of the Russian Biology teachers hit someone with a spade, in a dispute over the water.
This has turned into a rather long essay, but I hope it hasn’t been too boring to read. Just trying to show one of the many ways that my village experience here is different to, well, your lives!
Ohhh, on a slight tangent, while out walking around tonight, mum helped explained some of the road names. In Soviet times, most streets, and even towns, were named after famous people (Leningrad for example), and this was also true in Kazakhstan. So my street is named after a famous Kazak musician. And the street at the south of Beskol is named are Yuri Gagarin! As you can see, the naming process was not always related to local (or Kazakh) people, but those who were in favour with the Soviets at the time.
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