Aloha Fridays: Roof Water and Rain Barrels

As mentioned before in previous posts,  my family moved to Samoa for the second time in 1992.  We lived in the village of Amouli in a hurricane house that belonged to my grandparents.  The house was constructed of cement blocks and topped with plywood roof overlaid with corrugated tin.  The only indoor plumbing was the kitchen sink and it produced nothing but thick sludge when turned on – therefore, it was struck off our list as a source of fresh drinking water.

My father, ingenious man that he is, quickly worked to solve that problem.  In the picture below (which is the only photo I have of the entire fresh water reclamation system my father designed) you can see the rain gutter he rigged up to catch the runoff from the roof (never mind dirt and dust, bird and bat poop and other insect contributions).  The rain gutter would funnel the water into the barrel below which had several layers of netting and cotton fabric stretched over the top of it. 

Our high-tech water reclamation system.

Every morning, one or two  of us older girls would come out with an arm full of quart size plastic jugs (former Clorox bottles) and fill each bottle, add a drop of Clorox bleach, secure the lid on tightly and pack it inside to stack on the shelf next to the electrically challenged stove.  This would be our supply of drinking and cooking water for the day (for 11 people).

Teaching little brother and sister how to extract coconut juice. 
Poke hole in the "mouth" of the coconut and tip over a cup.

We’d also supplement our fluids with POG juice (Passion, Orange, Guava juice), from the local bush store, coconut juice and milk fresh from New Zealand.  I don’t know what it was that made it so, but the New Zealand butter and milk tasted far superior to American milk and butter.  Maybe their cows eat real cow food – like grass.