Water

I take water for granted. I have never been without water before. Ok, maybe for an hour once or twice in my life while they were working on a pipe in my neighborhood. I also had more freedom to go other places while the water was shut off so that it did not really effect me. I try to be aware of the water I am using and not waste water but I have never had to be super restricted. I have been without power for several hours before. Several weeks ago I got a text saying that we would be without water for 3 days. So a friend bought a large plastic trashcan and scooper for me for bathing. Nothing happened. I have used some of that water to clean my bathroom since it was just sitting there. Well, tonight when I finished with dinner there is no water in the kitchen. There is still water in my bathroom but that maybe from the tank on the top of the house. I didn't know what to do with my dirty dishes. I didn't want to use drinking water since I don't know how long we will be without water. So, I put my dirty dishes in a ziploc bag and put them back in the refrigerator. That might sound gross, but it will keep the ants from coming and should keep it like it does food when it is in the fridge, so that it doesn't start to smell. One of the servants did come in and try to explain to me, but since I am still doing horribly at learning Malay I had no idea what she was saying. I thought about going up and getting  a dictionary but it would have taken so long to look up every word especially since I don't know how to spell them. Then hopefully I can wash them tomorrow. I don't know what will happen if I run out of water in my garbage can and we still don't have water. I don't know if I can take it somewhere else and get water or if I will have to like stay in a hotel. Here it is too hot and I get too sweaty to not take a shower every day and go to work. I don't know what I would do about the toilet either. This morning the toilet is still flushing. I have not yet taken a shower, so I don't know if I try to use the shower or take a scooper bath with the water in my garbage can.  If I take a shower with the shower I probably shouldn't use the water heater with pump because that will probably take more water and I don't know how long this is going to last. I don't know if there is some place to find out this information or not. I heard the news usually passes around from text messages but since I didn't get one this time I don't know what that means. Does it mean that this is just confined to the place where I am living or my neighborhood which is a different neighborhood than the person I got the text from last time?
Back home in the front of our phone books were located all sorts of useful numbers to get answers for this sort of thing and many others. Here lots of places don't have phone books and I don't know if they would have those number in the front or what. Listening on the radio it is either not in English or it is a station that is for KL and they don't talk about that type of information for my town on that station. I don't have a TV, so I don't know if they would have a warning like they do back home on the tv or not. 
Growing up I watched my parents deal with situations and then I was able to deal with similar situations through from having watched them. Here I don't have that luxury, so I don't always know what to do in unknown situations and I can't really ask them since they have never lived here and experienced that.
This morning there was barely a trickle of water coming out of the kitchen tap, so I washed last night's dishes. There was enough water to take a shower but it was very short and I turned off the water in between soaping up and rinsing. I also did not use my water heater with pump to make sure I didn't waste any water. When I finished with breakfast we were back to no water so now that dish is in the fridge. I also used a paper towel as a plate. The servants were laughing at me and trying to show me something but I have no idea what.
When I got to school I found out that we also had no water at school. I guess the main pipeline into town burst. We didn't even have any bottled water because the person who is in charge of that had not done their job. So we also spent all morning without drinking water too. I used to bring a water bottle but sometimes I don't and today I didn't because we always have bottled water and I want to save my drinking water. Today was a PE day so they couldn't really shower after. I think some did a little water splashing since there was some water in the tanks. Not long after that we ran out of water to flush the toilets so had to use toilets that were full. The MPK stalls across the road were closed so those student who did not order lunch from this one restaurant or bring lunch had nothing to eat. Our Director of Studies did call and McDonald's was still able to make some food. So those of us that did not have food had McDonald's for lunch. We normally do McDonald's or KFC on Tuesdays so we place those orders first thing in the morning. Since we did not do that then we got lunch later. So instead of lunch we went right to our next class for 40 minutes and then had lunch for 40 minutes and then went back to that class. As of right now we are on for school tomorrow and hoping that the pipe gets fixed. If not we will probably go to school for half a day and then dismiss at lunch since the stalls will most likely be closed again. Finals are next week and I have some students that are leaving early. They have to get their stuff done before they go. I hope that it works out for them. If I had to stay home tomorrow I would work on grading things. It may be interesting the next few days.
I was also wondering how the Muslims wash up for prayer if there is no water. I know that the tanks have some water but I wonder what they do after the water in the tanks runs out. I will have to ask someone tomorrow.