The Water Saga Continues

Water.

The water came back on Friday morning. Just a trickle at first. By noon it was a stronger trickle. Mel decided to attempt a shower.

We have a kalunka. I just love that word! Saying it sounds a lot like imitating an old fashioned cash register. You walk into the store and look at all of the items for sale on the shelves behind the counters, or in barrels placed here and there throughout the room. The warm smell of dusty floorboards and vinegary pickles fills your nostrils. You decide you need a can of beans, a spool of thread and maybe some ammunition for your .22 rifle (rabbit hunting, you know). You tell the person behind the counter what you want and he or his assistant gets everything off the shelves behind the counters (except the ammunition of course, it’s under one of the counters) and piles it next to the cash register. He picks up the first item and turns to the register. With authority, he pushes the lever marked 5 cents down and that wonderful sound happens as the price pops up in the little window on top of the machine. Ka-lunk. (Or maybe it is ker-chunk – but that doesn’t fit in my imaginary story!) This is one of those funny words that I enjoy saying – it just kind of rolls off my tongue in a mix of hard and soft sounds - kalunka.

What in the world is a kalunka and why am I going on and on about it? {smile} I can’t find the word in our Russian-English dictionary this morning and Mel thinks it’s been adopted into the language here from Polish or some other language. The speakers that are used to amplify the music at church are also called kalunkas, but usually when I hear the word I think – water heater. Now I have finally made it back to my first paragraph.

We had a stronger trickle of water on Friday at noon, so Mel decided to try to take a shower. He turned the water on in the kitchen. The water comes into our flat through a pipe in the toilet room that comes up through the floor and disappears into the ceiling. About a foot from the floor there is a T intersection where a second pipe attaches to that main little pipe. The second pipe travels behind the toilet (where another T intersection diverts water to the toilet), through the wall into the banya (bath room) where the third T intersection occurs, diverting water to the sink and to the bathtub/shower. Finally, the pipe travels through a second wall into the kitchen. In the kitchen it hides behind the sink for 3 feet or so before taking a 90 degree turn straight up the wall for another 3+ or 4 feet and disappears inside the kalunka. The pipe is clearly visible the whole way, except where it goes through walls and behind the bathtub and sink cabinet. I just love pipe décor – not! But I’m glad it is out in the open because so often pipes spring leaks. When Mel turned the water on in the kitchen, the water started flowing through the kalunka and out of the kitchen sink faucet. Very carefully, he then turned on the kalunka.

The gas pressure has been very low (Ukraine and Russia continue to argue about Ukraine stealing gas and not paying enough for what she legally uses – and the gas is so bad that often it produces only a sputtering and hissing yellow flame with just a tiny blue dot at the base of the flame). Because the gas is so low, the pilot light is tiny and does not always immediately light the flame. Gas builds up inside the kalunka until it finally reaches the pilot light and explodes in a whomp that can be felt all over the flat at the sudden changes of expanding and contracting air pressure (but I hope not in the flats above or below us!). It always scares me when it happens because that thing could really explode and we’d all meet each other in heaven afterward. The kalunka whomped and Mel set the dial at the lowest possible setting. If the flame is high and the water pressure is low, the water does not move through the pipes inside the kalunka fast enough and it begins to boil. If it boils it will turn to steam very fast – at the blink of an eye fast. Then the kalunka starts shaking on the wall and one of us lets out a yell. My heart starts racing and I panic and the one who is not showering at the time dashes madly into the kitchen to turn the flame completely off (this is another possible “I’ll meet you in heaven” situation). It takes several minutes before the pipe cools down enough that steam stops coming out of all the faucets. Steam coming out of the shower head while you are taking a shower is not fun, believe me! It’s happened to me twice and I thank God I realized fast enough what was beginning to happen that I turned the shower lever off quickly enough not to get burned (screaming for Mel the whole time to turn the kulunka off – I very seldom ever take a shower if he is not here for this very reason). The other option is to keep the flame low enough to match the water pressure.

Mel went into the bathroom and opened the hot water faucet in the bathtub. Then he returned to the kitchen and closed the sink faucet. Water began pouring out into the bathtub – or it should have since the hot water in the bathroom comes from the kalunka in the kitchen! Instead it began to trickle out. He turned the lever for the shower and slowly water began to trickle out of the showerhead. After 3 days in above 90-degree temps and fairly high humidity, we were both desperate for a shower. The flame was high enough to take the chill off the water, but not high enough to actually warm the water. I decided to clean the toilet while Mel showered (usually there is no problem with flushing the toilet or turning on the bathroom sink while the shower is running). I scrubbed the toilet with a super duper bleachy smelling cleaner and then flushed. Mel let out a yell – and even though there were still cleaner bubbles on the “shelf” inside the toilet, I did NOT flush it again!

He finished his shower and then it was my turn. I got in and the water pressure came up just a tiny bit. But the gas pressure remained the same (set on the lowest setting of the kalunka) and I began to shiver. “Mel!” I yelled, head covered in shampoo. “The water is too cold!” He went back into the kitchen and tried to turn the flame up. But the next notch was too high of a flame for the water pressure and the water got so hot I couldn’t even put my hand in it, much less other parts of my body. So, Mel had to stand there in front of the kitchen sink, arm up, hand holding the dial about half way between “too cold” and “too hot” until I finished my shower. I just love that man! The things he does for me!

By evening, we still had low pressure water. But Saturday morning it was full strength.

Today is Sunday. We have no water again today. Mel is preaching later out at Tsurupinsk. He is not “a happy camper.” He wants his shower before he goes out to preach (we walked to the city center last night and by the time we got home, the water was off – no shower before bed). Maybe we’ll heat up some stored water in the electric kettle, mix it with some cool water and he can at least wash his hair. Or maybe by noon it will be back on again….

Water.