If it's broke, don't fix it

More about the water situation:  It’s on overnight and a few hours in the afternoon.  The pressure isn’t very good most of the time.  There is an outdoor spigot where we fill buckets and bottles, there is the kitchen sink, and there are the bathrooms.  If any one is running, there’s usually not enough pressure to get anything from the others.  The whole community is putting demand on the system, so there’s not enough to go around.  However we’ve found that if you get up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning you can get more than the drip that is usual for the shower at other times.  So we’ve started trying to do that, or catch it in the middle of the day while the others are napping and before it gets cut off.  Twice Beth has been in the middle of washing her hair when that’s happened.  There have been other frustrations as well.  Related is the toilet situation which until now I’ve hesitated to talk about because, well, it’s a toilet situation…

I think I mentioned earlier the students all share one shower, Jonas and his family have their own bathroom and the other toilet is for students.  Jonas has a policy that if there are women present only they get to use the toilet, or in our case, so can the husband.  We don’t necessarily agree, but our protests were only half hearted, since we benefit.  There are probably very few Africans who haven’t squatted over a hole, but if a toilet is available that’s where they want to go.  When it was announced that this was the policy it certainly didn’t raise our popularity amongst some already suspicious students.  It doesn’t help that the toilet is at the end of the hall next to their rooms, and the door makes a lot of noise (and sometimes we do too).  Nor would anyone choose to squat over a hole in the concrete in a corner formed by two cinder block walls without any cover.  It’s in the sun the entire day, so I’m sure the temperature easily exceeds 120 on most days, and I don’t think the rainy season offers much relief either.  (Is that a pun?)

The toilet supply line has leaked when the water is on since we’ve been here, but over the last several days it had gotten significantly worse, so I decided to attempt repairs.  Using scraps of inner tube rubber I’d picked up for just such a situation I fashioned gaskets for either side of the supply valve which is attached directly to the tank.  The first time there seemed to be some improvement, but I wanted to try again.  That was worse, so I decided to give it one more try.  Of course I’m making these attempts while the water is off, then waiting for sufficient pressure to see if it’s made a difference.  Sometimes when we know the water is on there and all the other valves are closed there’s still not enough pressure to get to the shower head or fill the toilet tank.  Such was the case last night when we went to bed at 10:30.  And for the second time we decided to sleep on the porch where it’s a little cooler, as Jonas’ family has been doing for several nights.  Jonas left yesterday for the weekend, but Rebecca and the kids were set up on the porch as well.

You’ve probably figured where this is going by now, and you were right.  I got up around 1: 45, and as I entered the house I could hear it:  spraying water. The threads of the valve had actually been corroded and cracked, and with the increased pressure they let go.  The toilet room and half the hallway were under water to the door of Rebecca and Jonas’ room.  Surprise, the floor isn’t level, so the water hadn’t flowed into the boy’s rooms which would have been closer.  So I cut off the water and got to work with a squeegee, pushing, pulling, and splashing it over the tile lip into the shower area.  After about an hour it appeared I had it all, and nobody got woke up; including Jean-Mark who was sleeping on the floor where the hallway begins.

In the morning, when Rebecca woke up, I told her what had happened and warned her that some water may have gone under her door.  Welcome to Lake Tjouie (their last name).  Their entire room had standing water, some nearly two inches.  Did I mention the floors aren’t level?  All of their belongings are in that room, so you can imagine what a mess.  We pulled everything outside and had the water squeegeed and toweled pretty quickly.  The soggy boxes of belonging were emptied and spread out to dry, and I think most things survived.  Lots of personal papers and books and stuff, so hopefully what needs to be saved was.

I’ve learned some lessons: 

1.       1 If it’s broke, don’t fix it.  You’ll be suspected of breaking it to begin with, or making it worse.  Okay maybe not, but if I hadn’t messed with it, the valve may have held for several more days or weeks.

2.     2  Young African men sleep well.  Nobody stirred during the entire episode.  I could hear them snoring on the doors and on the floor behind me.

3.    3   The replacement parts and tools that are available are worthless.  (I already knew that, a factor in our call to being here.)  I bought a complete toilet repair kit, a new flexible line, and cutoff valve ($11.25 for all), and the new valve is leaking worse than the old broken one.  It’s  more than a day since I started this, we kept the water shutoff overnight, and I’ve just put the old flexible line back on,  bypassing a valve.  We’ll see tonight if it works.

Our room is the first on the left, the boys are the next two, Jonas' is on the right, and the forbidden fruit is behind the door.

the boys bathroom, behind the grey wall
the clothes dryer stretches from the wall on the left to the tree

the outdoor water supply

amongst all the other trash scattered on the ground are these flip flop gasket remains

Another common sight; exposed water pipe.  Light weight poly crossing roads and footpaths.
When they rupture or are cut they become community water supplies until fixed.
Do you think this has anything to do with the water pressure?
At least they're below the frost line.