running short... of patience

Yesterday, the water started to smell better, well chlorine being better. So, I spent the day running the tap to clear out the old water and refresh the hot water tank.
And, I finally had a nice long shower... Everything was lovely....

Then I talked to Alex and the other foreign teachers. They'd been talking to one of the students who happens to work for the company that does the water testing for TaiChouHu. She said, quite frankly, which is unusual, that the water is so bad, it cannot get better for a long time, that the stuff they are dumping into the water is far more toxic than the water was to begin with and that she is moving herself and her daughter out of Wuxi because she's afraid to touch the stuff at all. Then she said she wasn't allowed to say any more and warned us not to touch the water for any reason.

So, I'm back to sponge baths.

Except, the government is telling people that the water is fine and many people are starting to believe that the better smelling water is safe. Right now, most restaurants are using bottled water to cook and clean with. But with most people believing it's safe now, when the government says that the water is safe again, everyone is going to go back to using it for everything, including consumption. Since we rely on restaurants for food, as we don't have much of a kitchen, this is a significant problem.

Thus, we have two choices: eat only that which can be microwaved, or leave town.

*I sincerely urge anyone in Wuxi who has children or is pregnant or breastfeeding to leave now, as quickly as possible, and not come back.*

Environmental hippyness aside, you really don't appreciate how precious water is until you lose it. You'd be amazed how many different ways your life is affected when you don't have any.