The never ending search for the water guy

The never ending search for the water guy…
In my apartment you cannot drink the tap water. Well, you can drink the water but I STRONGLY encourage you not to. My building is fairly old, dating back somewhere between when Caesar ruled and Jesus was born, give or take a few years. The plumbing in my building, to my knowledge, has never been replaced although I cannot seem to locate where they are hiding the aqueducts. However, I am always hearing gurgling and bubbling from mysterious locations so I am sure that must be them. I believe they come complete with roman slaves that were never told about the fall of Rome.
When you turn on the faucet in my apartment at first nothing happens. Then you hear moaning and clanking and distant gurgling sounds. I assume this is the roman slaves in the basement moaning and commencing to haul buckets of water from the aqueduct to wherever it needs to be put to come out of my faucet. If I listen hard enough I can hear the ocean. Ten or so minutes later, after increased rattling and groaning of pipes (or slaves) rust red water begins to spit from my faucet. The first time I saw this I screamed like a little girl because I thought I had entered a horror movie and the faucets were pouring blood. My neighbor assured me that if you let the water run for a few minutes it will pale to an only slightly tinted red color. That way when you use it to wash your clothes they only turn pink instead of a lovely shade of burnt umber. Good to know. Either way I now realize why people would rather drink vodka then tap water. Vodka is better for you. On special days when the roman captives are on vacation, the water doesn’t run at all. I have learned to plan ahead for this and keep large bottles of faintly red water in my kitchen for washing purposed on roman holidays.
This being said, I must buy bottled water for all of my drinking and cooking needs. You can buy water in Ukraine in 5 liter jugs that cost around 6 hryven (roughly $1.07). That may not seem a lot to you but to a stingy little Peace Corps volunteer I feel like I am paying for Perrier water to boil noodles. However, there is an alternative. Once you have emptied a 5 liter jug of its Perrier water there is a guy that comes around to our apartment complex every Saturday with a big water truck full of deliciously drinkable and much cheaper water (like 1 hryven per 5 liters or 17 or so cents). You find him and he will fill your empty water jugs. How do I know this? I have seen people leave my apartment with empty water jugs and return with the same full water jugs. Other PC volunteers have mentioned that the same thing happens in their communities. My only problem was that I could never find this guy. He is like a Ukrainian Carmen Sandiego.
The first time I tried to find him I followed an old Babucia who was carrying some empty 2 liter Fanta bottles. I figured she just couldn’t carry 5 liters so she opted for 2. She led me straight to, get this, the milk truck. Not your normal American milk truck with the guy in the white outfit and bottles of milk. This looked like a mini gas tanker with a hose fixed to the back and had MOЛОКО (milk) spray painted on the side. You hand the tough looking babucia at the back some money and she will use the hose to fill up whatever containers you brought with you with fresh Ukrainian milk. I am saying fresh with ridiculous optimism here but one can hope. Not having a fridge I decided that I didn’t want to buy two 5 liter jugs of milk and risk receiving some “full jugs” jokes. Although, the humor may not translate into Ukrainian.
On my next attempt I decided to follow an old grandpaw who was carrying 5 liter jugs. I hoped that he still had enough teeth that he was going to use those jugs for water and not milk so I began to tail him. If you know anything about Ukrainians you should know that they take their time getting places on Saturday morning. Especially the retired folks because this is like their Friday and Saturday night. They need to stop and talk to every other old person that is outside on that day, and they are all outside because they wouldn’t want to miss the party. It’s like they are trying to hide their tracks and one of the main reasons I was never able just watch were they went to find the water guy. In Ukraine, the shortest distance between two points is too your neighbors, around the block, stopping next door, popping into the store, and chatting with 8 people on your way to these various places. Not a straight line.
The first couple of times grandpaw stopped I just walked by him like I was on my way to some other place or on an errand. While he chatted up the Babucia in building 10K I pretended to look at fruit and had to buy some expensive peaches to make up for all of the poorly worded insipid question I asked the shopkeeper just to look like I belonged there. He meandered down the street with his jugs and I pretended to play with the million half feral cats that prowled the streets. I stopped that when they started ganging up on me and I remembered that none of these cute but armed and dangerous fuzzies had ever had a shot in their entire 9 lives. He stopped again to chat up babucia #2, this one with bigger jugs then him but hers’ weren’t in her hands if you know what I mean. I pretended to be waiting for someone, glancing at my watch until I realized that I wasn’t wearing one. I hoped he was nearsighted.
By this time, grandpaw has noticed my attentions and he was starting to look decidedly nervous. I can imagine what was going through his mind when he realized he was being stalked by the American in the building. This man lived through the cold war. I look and am harmless but for all he knows I am a trained killer. He begins to double back moving surprisingly quickly for a man stopped at a 90 degree angle and I am forced to dart behind shrubbery to hide myself. I realize that I am going to give this old man a heart attack or a complex or both so I give up that chase and he disappears around a corner. I didn’t find the water guy and now everyone who has witnessed my little prowl around the apartment complex keeps looking at me like they are checking for weapons.
I returned home from a trip to Kyiv recently and needed to stock up on supplies. I headed to the Milk Kiosk, yes they have a store just for milk and it is the only place I can buy servings of cheese for one person so I love it. I discover the Kiosk is closed and as I round the corner I run smack dab into a teenager dressed entirely in army fatigues. Being the hardened American I am I don’t yell but let out a much more dignified and Ukrainian “oi!”. We both apologize to each other and he disappears. I mean, literally disappears. One minute he is there, the next he is gone, so I look closer. Yes, I know horror movies start out this way but it was a Saturday morning so I figured how dangerous could it be? There, parked in a little clump of shrubbery is a giant green truck that has a camouflage covered flat bed. Under that camouflage is a giant water tank. It was the water guy!!! I heard angles singing and skipped off to get my depleted water jugs. Good things come to those who wait and who don’t watch where they are going when they are leaving the milk kiosk.