Caixa d'agua?

Today there is a water "outage" in 350 neighborhoods in Belo Horizonte.  COPASA (the water company) is supposedly doing some work on a water plant to help increase with production.  The interruption in service was supposed to begin at midnight last night, and the water will be back before dawn tomorrow morning.  I just happened to see this because a Brazilian friend posted a notice on Facebook.  I wasn't sure at first about it (you know, some of those crazy Facebook/Twitter "news" reports).  But once I confirmed, I felt it my duty to spread the word.  I felt a little alarmed that so little was being done to notify the 2 million residents that they would be without water for more than 24 hours.  NO WATER!  I posted it on Facebook, and told our sindica (building superintendent).  Again, I was surprised by her blasé response.  She said she might post a notice in the building, but when I saw her later she said she didn't think that it would really affect us, because we only have 20 people in our building, and the caixa d'agua (water tank) should last the whole day.  

And this got me thinking about the caixa d'agua.  Practically every apartment building and house in Belo Horizonte has a caixa d'agua.  Why is this?  At first, I thought that these large water containers were the actual source of water for the residents, that is, a truck delivered water to the caixa d'agua.  But how the heck does the water get from the truck to the top of the apartment?  This is the faulty logic (stupidity) of the fresh-off-the-boat expat.  But after 3 years of living here, I still haven't figured out why they exist in such abundance here.  A brief google search didn't help much.  But here are my guesses:

1.  There used to be more frequent water outages.  The caixa d'agua is a remnant from these days when the water would randomly go out, and was insurance that there would always be a supply of water.

2.  Gravity.  Perhaps there isn't enough water pressure coming from water from the street, so a roof top container will provide the gravity needed to pump that water through the pipes.  

3.  Dengue.  Brazil really doesn't want to eradicate Dengue, and is committed to mosquito breeding.  

Ok, that last theory is a little crazy.  But most of what I found online were yahoo answers to questions like, "Why do I have to keep my caixa d'agua covered?"  and "why is it important to clean my caixa d'agua?"  Ewww.  

That being said, I have experienced the cleaning of the caixa two times (last crappy apartment, and current nice apartment).  We were without water for about an hour.  That was more hardship than was experienced today.  As far as I could tell, there was water all day, everywhere I went!  The pool at the club!  Nice long showers for all in our apartment today!  Our neighbors hosing down the sidewalks in front of their apartments!  The neighbor downstairs that ignores the rules and washes his car in the garage!

Anyone out there care to educate me about the caixa d'agua?

I changed the chuveiro!

I can't remember if I've written about showers in Brazil.  Many people have.  Most apartments and houses do not have hot running water.  And contrary to popular believe, not all of Brazil is in the humid tropics, so it's nice to have hot showers.  So, we have these:

 http://rhbjhistoria.blogspot.com.br/2009/06/historia-de-invencoes.html

It's called the chuveiro.  There is an electric current that runs through the apparatus that heats up the water.  The nice thing is that you have almost instantaneous hot water (if the water pressure is right).  The not so nice thing is that it's a mixture of water and electricity.  Just a wee bit risky, I must say.  But it works.  At least most of the time.

Friday night, our oldest daughter was taking a shower, when we heard her start yelling, "MOMMMMMMM!"  I've heard that before.  It means something is malfunctioning with the shower.  A few times there has been smoke (a horrible plastic smell).  And once or twice just really hot water and lots of steam.  But it means it's time to change the chuveiro.  My informal YouTube research helped me learn that you can actually just change the little coil "element" inside the head, and all is good.  We had 2 leftover shower heads from our last apartment (yes, we took EVERYTHING with us when we moved.  We left it as we had found it:  barren).  Rather than being totally Brazilian (fixing it rather than throwing it away), we opted to just get rid of the old shower head.  Unfortunately, my husband couldn't change the shower head because it was night.  In order to change it, you have to turn off the power, and that means turning off the lights.  And also unfortunately, my husband was leaving in 45 minutes for an orchestra tour.  But he assured me that I could do it the next morning.

However, Saturday morning arrived and I had my hands full with 3 children.  I couldn't call the dear hubby, and his sporadic texts weren't giving the me the confidence I needed to deal with electricity and tools.  So I ended up taking a bucket shower.  You know it:  fill the bucket with warm water and attempt to get yourself clean as shampoo runs in your eyes.

Sunday morning I decided that I was done with the bucket, and I was going to face the chuveiro.  And I did it!  Turned off the power.  Unscrewed the square boxy like thing that the wires go in.  Removed the old shower head.  Screwed on the new shower head.  Put the new wires in the square boxy thing.  Turned the power back on.  Hot water!  Nice, warm shower!

Someone saw me disposing of the old chuveiro today (yes, it sat around in our apartment for a full 24 hours before I got around to taking it out with the trash.  It was one of those kind of Sundays).  She was SO impressed that I, an AMERICAN WOMAN could change the chuveiro.  I feel pretty dang proud of myself!