Water is precious here. There is barely any rainfall and the rest of the water is ocean water, so desalination plants work hard to provide water for the region. The school pays for our housing water bill, and I don't want to see it, I'm sure water isn't cheap here.
When it comes to drinking water, everyone drinks bottled water, and water coolers abound in Oman. In fact, we have one in our house, everyone does. Whenever I used to think of water coolers, I thought about business offices having them, and the jokes about people hanging out at the water cooler. Now, this is my life.
Water jugs are delivered once a week. Water delivery trucks come around just like a garbage trucks. You set your empty water jugs outside your door with either exact change (.65 rials or $1.10 US) or water tickets you buy ahead in books tucked in the top of the jug. You come home to new bottles to tuck away in your supply. We came to our house with two full jugs and two empties. After drinking lots of water, I'm sure our water guys were surprised to find four jugs waiting to be exchanged. Here are our three backup waiting nicely in our closet. Why is the closet all tiled, you ask? It's normally the laundry room but our machine was attached in the other space off the kitchen. Who knows.
Other fun house stuff:
There are floor drains in all kitchen and bathrooms. If you look under them, water flows freely underneath between pipes. It's a bit weird because every once in awhile, like if we do a large load of laundry, water will seep out of our kitchen drain a bit. And sometimes, you'll be in the kitchen and hear water trickling and you'll think, "crap, the water cooler is dripping" or "I left the faucet on", only to realize it's water trickling through under the drain.
One of our three AC units. They run off and on all day. We have lovely remote controls to them (see next picture) that can adjust all kinds of stuff. I haven't figured much of that out since I don't have a manual, but I do know how to turn them on and off, change the temp, change the fan speed, and change the fan angle. That's enough.
The usual set of switches in each room by the door. They are located higher than in the states, so we sometimes fumble to find them without looking. Typically, one or two of the switches don't do anything. Where they are attached to, no clue. The rest control lights and the fan. The round knob adjusts the ceiling fan speed, the big switch is the ultimate power switch for the AC (or the hot water in the bathrooms), and the remote is for the AC.
The power outlets look like this. They also have switches so you can turn off power to the outlet when you aren't using it. Handy.
When it comes to drinking water, everyone drinks bottled water, and water coolers abound in Oman. In fact, we have one in our house, everyone does. Whenever I used to think of water coolers, I thought about business offices having them, and the jokes about people hanging out at the water cooler. Now, this is my life.
Water jugs are delivered once a week. Water delivery trucks come around just like a garbage trucks. You set your empty water jugs outside your door with either exact change (.65 rials or $1.10 US) or water tickets you buy ahead in books tucked in the top of the jug. You come home to new bottles to tuck away in your supply. We came to our house with two full jugs and two empties. After drinking lots of water, I'm sure our water guys were surprised to find four jugs waiting to be exchanged. Here are our three backup waiting nicely in our closet. Why is the closet all tiled, you ask? It's normally the laundry room but our machine was attached in the other space off the kitchen. Who knows.
Other fun house stuff:
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