Saturday, January 17/2009

Very sunny at morning market so we ignore forecasts of rain and have Cypriot coffee at the ittle cafe with M&M. Then pick up oranges, broccoli, onions and tomatoes from the stalls - a big bag of oranges with the dark green leaves stil fresh. The promised rain does come in the afternoon but not enough of it to help Cyprus water supply much. Our hotel gets municipal water supplied three days a week. The other days it has to be brought in, and at that we´re much luckier than the locals, many of whom simply do not have water every day. Some water has been brought in from Greece by ship but the situation is still very difficult. The basic problem, of course, is simply lack of rain but there is also a lack of deent storm sewers and local reservoirs. When there is a real rain, as just before Christmas, the local news is busy reporting not only on flooded streets but on how busy the fire department has been pumping out people´s basements. An interesting use for the fire department.