Words by Pat Eggleton
I love Italy, and in particular, Sicily, with all my heart but if there is one thing that tries my “pazienza” here it is the water supply. “But Sicily is an island”, I hear you say, “so how can there be a water shortage?” I still do not know the answer to this question, just as I have never figured out exactly why water in this part of Modica is delivered by lorry. Yes, you read that correctly; in a modern, technologically advanced, Western European country in the twenty-first century, water is delivered by lorry.
When I first arrived and friends advised me to always have some bidoni [plastic containers] filled with water in the house, I did as they said but didn’t really believe that it would be necessary to use them. How wrong I was!
The sound of the water lorry..
Not only is water delivered by lorry, but you have to be prophetic about when it is going to run out as you need to phone the Comune [Council] Water Office a week before to order a refill. Sometimes they will tell you that the service is “sospeso” [suspended]. This happens occasionally when the lorry drivers go on strike because the Comune has no money to pay them but more often because the Comune has no money at all.
Worse, sometimes the Water Office has its phone cut off for non-payment of the bill and at those times you have no idea when you are going to get a refill. If you have ordered water prior to the “sospensione” you may be able to persuade your regular water lorry driver – ours is gruff but kindly - to make a delivery but if you have left it too late there is nothing he can do. In that case you have to buy water from a private water carrier at 35 euros a load and 40 if you want a receipt.
The sound of the water lorry coming up the road has become a very welcome one to me over these five years and I have become quite an expert on how much water you need for what and on water conservation. I can tell you that you need 4 litres to flush a toilet, three to clean all the floors in an average-sized apartment and half a litre to wash your hands properly.
In summer I recycle the air conditioner water to fill the bidoni. Drinking water, of course, is not a problem as, like most Italians, I use mineral water.
But if the water supply is off for more than a day I soon use up the water in my bidoni and I get very frustrated when I have to start using mineral water for washing and flushing.
During my first summer here we were without water in the condominio for six days in the middle of August and I thought I would go insane. The problem on that occasion was a hole in the water tank in the cistern so every time we got a delivery the water just leaked out again.
“Why didn’t you call a plumber?” you ask. Well, we did but he couldn’t get into the cistern cupboard because the capo-condominio, [tenant in charge of administration ] had gone away for the summer and taken the cupboard keys with her. This is Sicily, folks!
Eventually, on ferragosto [the August 15th holiday] a co-tenant broke the cupboard door down – what else could we do? - and managed to persuade a plumber called Luigi to come.
Luigi patched up the hole but how were we going to get a water delivery on ferragosto? Ah, we had reckoned without the Sicilian plumber who “knew a man who knew a man” who was a private water carrier and he would come at once. He did and, after pumping ten cubic metres of water into the cistern, shook hands and wished us a “buon ferragosto”. No sooner had he reversed out and chug-chug-chugged down the road, than we heard a chug-chug-chug in the other direction and saw the Comune lorry, whose driver another tenant had persuaded to come out, approaching. We were not going to refuse another fill-up, given the circumstances, and, although the driver did not seem happy at first, having seen the other lorry leave, when we explained everything to him he willingly unloaded another tankful . By this time all the neighbours who were not at the sea were out on their balconies watching and making the “pazienza” gesture [hands in the air] whenever any of us looked up.
The water did not come back on immediately, though, and Simi the dog and I had to go up and down at least fifteen times and shout, "C'è acqua!" ["There's water!"] or "Non c'è acqua!" ["There's no water!"] from the balconies as the men tested the thingamajigs in the cistern cupboard.
Finally there was water and oh, what a wonderful sound it made! Simi had enjoyed herself no end barking at all the comings and goings and we had provided holiday entertainment for all the folk living around us.
