This started out yesterday afternoon as a post about how it had been an uneventful week I thought I would take this opportunity to comment on some of the more mundane aspects of our African existence. I should have known better than to say something so silly!
Things had been relatively uneventful, with K enjoying school and finally having consistently great drop-offs every morning, and lovely pick-ups in which she would tell us that going to school makes her “so very happy.” Our new nanny was getting settled in and she and T were getting acquainted. Things appeared to be running smoothly.
Until 9:30 last night when I went to rinse out my wine glass before going to bed and realized that we had… no water. Our water is city water, but for it to actually reach the house our borehole pump has to be functioning. It had gone out once before, but that was in conjunction with our hot water heater also going out and we were able to look in the fuse box and see that, oh, our water pump is also shorted out. This time I looked in the fuse box and all of the fuses were happily lined up as if nothing was wrong. Lying, lying fuses!!!
A brief interlude to further explain the water situation. The water here is tested frequently and is consistently found safe, but since the city water pipes, pumps etc. are not the most modern, and since the city does not treat the water with anything, and since during the rainy season there can be strange runoff and other potential problems, we are strongly urged to only drink and cook with distilled water as a precaution. We bathe in tap water, do dishes in tap water, and even brush our teeth with tap water, but for drinking or cooking we use distilled. As such, we have a nice big water distiller in the house that stays full.
So when the water went out last night it was highly annoying but not really a crisis. I knew that we would have enough water to get up, have coffee, get K to school and make it until the electrician got here. I might not get a shower, but we weren’t going to be thirsty.
But we aren’t the only people living on this here compound and using the water! Our guards, the two very nice men who work in 12 hour shifts keeping us safe, also use the water for drinking and to make their corn meal porridge that they eat every day. And guess what: they don’t have a nice, shiny distiller. My nanny’s family now living in the staff quarters is also totally reliant on our water, and they too do not have the luxury of a distiller. So last night, instead of calling it an early night as I had hoped (oh, did I mention that C was out of town for work? He is, just to add to the fun) I was scurrying around bringing bottled water out to the guard shack and the staff quarters. Only then did the guard inform me that the power had been totally out in the staff quarters for a few hours but our nanny was too polite to come and tell me. Arrgghh! So now those poor people have no water or electricity. Way to go team America!
I place the necessary calls and there are promises that the electrician will be here first thing in the morning. I send a petulant text to C, and there is really nothing else I can do so I decide to call it a night. I go to get ready for bed and WTF!!! What is that creepy crawly critter scurrying around my bathroom?! Some giant 2-inch long prehistoric cockroach thingy, of course! Gross!! Totally too big to squish so I chase him around with some bug spray until he finally succumbs. Now I have a headache, so I wander into one of our other bathrooms in search of ibuprofen and what do I discover but buggy #1’s brother making himself at home in there. You have got to be kidding me! I have seen my fair share of assorted buggys since our arrival, but these guys are new, and of course they had to show up tonight.
On a side note, it is quite possible that these brontosaurus bugs are, in fact, not new but that C has been aware of them for weeks. Something similar happened when we were living in Minneapolis. I woke up one morning and walked into the bathroom to discover a mouse happily going about his business. I expressed the appropriate amount of shock and dismay, to which C responded, “oh, that guy? I saw him a few weeks ago but I didn’t want to tell you and upset you.” Which would be all well and good, but he also didn’t do anything to remedy the problem, like go out and buy an absurd number and variety of traps, which was my solution. Similarly, I am left to wonder if C is well aware of these monstrosities, but has failed to either mention them to me, or to rain down appropriate shock and awe warfare upon them (watch out buggys, it is coming later today, hahahaha!).
Back on topic. I was totally creeped out by the critter visitors so it was nearly impossible to get to sleep as I imagined all sorts of nasty visitors slinking in under the mosquito netting. I finally start to drift off, and T, who has been consistently either sleeping through the night, or only waking up once, wakes up for what will eventually be the first of three night time wake ups. And, to add insult to injury, K also decided to wake up at 4am. Very sleepy arrghhh!!!
Another side note: I just looked outside to discover my gardener, who knows that the water is out because I just discussed it with him, trying to wash our truck. Doh!
None of this is a crisis, obviously. Everyone is healthy and happy and well (other than me being quite tired today) but it is frustrating because it would be nice if things like water would just work. And sometimes they don’t. And I know it isn’t going to get permanently fixed today. Whatever underlying electrical issue is causing these problems will still be there [updatred to include the photo below of the temporary “fix”]. Indeed, they may, or may not, actually make it worse. And, since Friday’s are a half-day I am going to have to call and harass them all morning to make sure they get out here before knocking off work at noon [it took 6 additional phone calls]. And it would be nice if there weren’t giant bugs in my bathrooms, but sometimes there are and it just means I need to stock up on bug spray.
But, it is a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and C gets home this afternoon and hopefully the weekend will be fun and I will have something less irritating and more fun to report soon.
Note the new power line strung from our house through the trees back to the staff quarters. The electrician, who was actually quite good, determined that all of our assorted issues (the pump going out, our hot water heater shutting off, and the erratic electricity in the staff quarters) were all caused by one bad line running underground from the house to the quarters. This is the fix until they can come out and lay a new permanent line.
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