Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink

You would think with so much water around us there would be plenty to drink. Not so. The water system is good but sometimes landlords for whatever reason don't get the water pumped up into the tanks on the roof so it doesn't flow into the apartments or sometimes the city will shut it off for awhile. Some days it is just hit or miss. Knowing that, we require each missionary apartment to have a water barrel full of extra water. The barrels are about 3 1/2 feet around and about 4 feet tall. Finding them is hard. Though you see them at people's homes, where they buy them remains a mystery to us. We have checked at dozens of stores. Each time we need a new one we have gone to great lengths to find it. This time a sister in the ward knew another sister in another ward who had two that she would sell. We called this sister but she did not return our call until we were out of the office and driving around in the corolla. We decided to go look at the barrels anyway to make sure they were what we wanted even though we knew they would not fit in our car. So we asked for directions. We knew we were in trouble when she gave us partial directions and told us to wait there for her children who would lead us the rest of the way. Well we made it to where the children were, and they hopped in and lead us to this wonderful spot we didn't even know existed in Praia.

This is as far as we could take the car. We walked with them along the rim of this lovely valley. Down below was an imitation of Sugar Loaf in Rio de Janeiro. It is a statue of Christ with his arms spread out.

After a wonderful visit with the family, we decide the water barrels were just what we needed and told them we would pick them up the next day. Then while driving out, we decided we better find some serious landmarks to help us find this place again. We knew there was one turn we had to get right or we would never make it back there. A quick prayer and there it was ... Suzy's Bar of all things.

So the next day the water barrels were purchased and we drove them all the way across the island. At our farthest stopping point - Terrafal - we dropped the last barrel off. We were so proud of ourselves until we got about a block away and spotted a store with several water barrels just setting out front. Ha. Elder Mathews stopped the car and we bought one. We will be opening another apartment in Assomada in a few more weeks so on the way home we stopped by the Elders there and asked them to store it for us. I am not sure the mystery of the water barrels has been solved but I love the randomness of this place.