Trying to Fend Off Covid-19 in a Land That Has Run Out of Water

(Bloomberg) -- Editor’s Note: There are few places as chaotic or dangerous as Venezuela. “Life in Caracas” is a series of short stories that seeks to capture the surreal quality of living in a land in total disarray.

I dearly love my friends in first-world economies who message me about the importance of washing my hands.

I also envy their blissful ignorance.

As a resident of Venezuela’s capital, I long ago learned not to rely on government services. I can manage with fitful electricity and randomly-functional internet service, cratering pot-holes and empty tanks at state-owned gasoline stations.

What I struggle to go without is enough water. The geniuses at the Health Ministry who advise us to vigorously cleanse for 20 seconds, between and above fingers and don’t forget the wrists, obviously have not tried to accomplish this with a bowl of murky liquid sitting in the sink, waiting for the taps to run.

Of all the essentials, water is the most precious during the coronavirus pandemic. Cleanliness is more than ever a matter of life or death with Covid-19 infections on the rise. (After having gradually loosened some quarantine rules, the government just said it would switch back to a stricter lockdown following a rapid increase in cases.) 

My apartment building has access to water service and rations supplies, which means residents get some flowing in for some period of time each day or so. We decide how to make use of it. Should I take a shower? Launder my clothes? Wash the dishes? Rinse the vegetables? Save it all for my hands?

Still, we’re the lucky ones. Betty Gomez, who lives with her husband and two children in Petare, a slum in eastern Caracas, makes the same sorts of calculations but from a far different base. Her water comes from public spigots —most often dry these days — or nature.

“We went looking for water at a spring near our house and stood in line for 12 hours,” she told me. “I save water in tubs and pots all over our house. I’m an expert at showering with a 2-liter Coke bottle. I even have some water left over in the end.”

Not enough, of course, for regular 20-second hand washings.

As the rainy season finally began a few weeks ago, ending months of smothering heat and smoke from forest fires in the mountains that ring the city, the lids on Caracas’ rooftop water tanks came off and people placed buckets outside their doorsteps, to collect as much moisture from the heavens as possible.

During a recent downpour, I watched as a neighbor nudged her two little grandkids into the alley behind our building to stock up for much-need showers.

“Abuela!” one of the children shouted after a while, doing his best to pick up one of the family’s collection tubs. “It’s finally full!”

A small victory, in a place desperate for much more. 

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