I Need a Knot…I’m at the End of My Rope!
Navigating the road of everyday life in Kigali remains a great challenge. About a month ago we had plumbing problems in one of the bathrooms. We called the homeowner who promised to send a “technician” to fix the problem. Incidentally, it seems everyone in Kigali is a maid, a guard, a gardener or a technician – all of the terms seem to be assigned pretty loosely even by the most liberal definition. Anyway, the technicians showed up two weeks later with their tools in a wrinkled brown paper bag and determine they need to replace a part. They took what they needed and headed off to parts unknown. Another two weeks pass and they show up early one morning as I was about to go to Bible Study. I asked them how long the job would take since I knew I had to leave in a half hour. Mr. Technician assured me they would be done in 15 minutes. After all this time I should have known better. Twenty five minutes pass, Mo and Larry are still fooling around in the bathroom so I tell them I need to leave the house and they will have to return after lunch. I leave the house for my class and they go wherever technicians go during their downtime. Perhaps 25 women show up for the class and we have a great time in fellowship and prayer. We pick up Ken for lunch on the way home and I’m in very good spirits. Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know this story sounds way too normal to end here. Well we step into the house and just as I begin to smell dampness, Ken yells from the bathroom that we’ve got a problem. Take a guess. That’s right, the bathroom is flooded. Water is shooting from the bathtub faucet onto the floor, rolling down the hall and seeping into the bedrooms. I can feel the afterglow of the fellowship draining from my body and being replaced by that old familiar disappointment I’ve come to know so well.
We get the owner’s representative on the phone and explain the emergency. His response: well your wife sent the technicians home, what would you have me to do? Well DUH?!
How about you send Dumb and Dumber back out here and get this geyser under control? Meanwhile, I get Ken’s lunch prepared and make him sit down to eat as I watch water creep down my hall like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. About an hour later they show up, shake their heads and cluck their tongues at the flood they created.
My friends all know that I am generally slow to anger but just as sure as I am currently living in this time warp, I would have gone off like a rocket had they understood English. My Pastor would have been proud of the way I smiled thru gritted teeth and took on a “hey you didn’t do it on purpose” demeanor. They finally get the job finished while I mop and bail water down the tub. The guy who appears to be the worker finishes and leaves the house. The second guy whom I guess was the brains of the operation has found a paint-splattered pail and decides to help me clean up the mess. You have to imagine a shoeless guy in dress slacks and long sleeve cotton shirt with his pants rolled up to the knees mumbling to himself in some African dialect. He’s bending over, scooping water with his hands into this plastic pail and probably cussing up a storm. Of course, this does nothing to assuage my growing anger and I ask him to kindly leave and let me clean up. He says he doesn’t understand what I’m saying – by the way, some Africans do this selectively. I take the pail from his hands and make shooing motions for him to leave so I can finish mopping. He shrugs his shoulders, turns and walks away on tiptoe with arms outstretched for balance. The next day we had no running water.
Same Sh!t, Different Day
We just came to the end of the first full week with no running water. That’s right folks – no showering, no laundry, cooking with bottled water and my legs look like they should be attached to Queen Kong. Apparently there is a major water shortage here in the capitol city and all I can tell you is that it seems nothings being done about it. I would however, put the smart money on the fact that the president of this country has running water at his house. We do have a water storage tank in the yard, as do most homes here. It holds about 5,000 liters and I suppose if we don’t water the yard, don’t do laundry and share showers it can last about a week. I mention the storage tank because when the city water goes off – which is at some point every day – it’s easy to tell because of the decrease in water pressure. The gardener, who is Rwandan and speaks no English, will use the water in the storage tank to the very last drop taking care of the yard. I always have to watch him from the windows and stop him when he tries to use the water from storage. I tell him, the water is gone, there’s no more. He looks at me with a dazed expression and motions that yes, there is water. He reminds me of a toddler who doesn’t get it when his parents say there’s no money for a new toy and the kid points to a box of checks and says just write a check mom. I talked about this with my friend Jessica who has been here for 18 months now. She said it’s an ongoing struggle to get Rwandans to understand that because we are Americans does not mean that we have bottomless resources. They think somehow that we have some great hookup and never short of resources. This guy simply cannot understand how we can have water in the tank but say there is none for watering the yard. He figures he should just use it until it is gone and then start again until the next day. It is quite likely that he lives in a place without running water or electricity and really does not understand that when the City water is off, we use what’s in the tank for everyday things like dishes, toilets and showering.
The situation with the water has gotten so bad that the guys who rent houses as we do have had to send water trucks to the homes to fill our storage tanks. Ken arranged for a water truck this afternoon just before lunch. It was our hope that the gardener would be gone to lunch when the truck came so he wouldn’t know there was water in the tank. Unfortunately, he crossed paths with the truck and spent the first 15 minutes of his lunch hour watching the tank being filled. I promptly wrote a big note saying DO NOT USE THE WATER and taped it to the spigot he uses for watering. It then dawned on me that if he could not speak English, he likely could not read it either. Truth be told, he could certainly be one of the thousands here who cannot read or write. What to do, what to do? I took an oversized roll of tape and covered the opening of the spigot several times. Care to guess if he gets the message? I intend to leave the sign on until the City water is back on.
July 21, 2006
We finally have water in the house! It’s amazing how good a hot shower feels after going several days without.
I’ve turned into something of a news junkie since we have been here. We get CNN and BBC. I watch Larry King Live just before lunch. We get the international edition of CNN and as you probably would expect, coverage is not so focused on America. There’s a fairly limited selection of shows from the States and the only thing we really watch regularly is National Geographic, Discovery and History Channel. I was channel surfing recently and some of the U.S. programs from the satellite include Oprah, Tyra Banks Show, Jerry Springer, Touched by an Angel, Matlock, X-Files, 24, The Practice, Boston Legal, Seinfeld and Days of Our Lives. Trinity broadcasting network is on 24 hours and you can catch 30-year-old broadcasts of Oral Roberts and other televangelists. They show lots of British programming and several African soap operas. Every now and then I find a decent movie to watch. Fortunately for me, I was not a huge TV fan to begin with so I can’t really say that I miss it. One thing I do miss achingly is reading the New York Times, other American Newspapers and magazines.
The Eyesore Next Door
I’ve written previously about how we live in a virtual fortress with ten foot high walls, a locked iron gate and 24-hour security guards. It is typical of nicer homes here in Kigali City. Another common sight is unfinished construction projects. In the immediate vicinity of our house alone are two abandoned homes in various stages of construction. There is a third one next door that we affectionately refer to as the Eyesore Next Door. It seems someone has actually decided to turn it into a home. When we first moved in, we seldom saw anyone on the property. They have recently stepped up their efforts at construction during the day. The abandoned property immediately to the right of the Eyesore seems to be occupied by squatters. We see people making fires, cooking, bathing and washing clothes all outdoors. It is not an uncommon sight all over town. At this point, only the frame and outside walls are complete so it is barely more than shelter from the rain. You can probably imagine what home construction is like here. There are no ladders, machinery, scaffolding, safety shoes, hard hats, regard for safety of the workers, electricity, etc., etc. The only thing close to a tool I have seen is a saw, a sorry looking drill and a hammer. I have no idea how they got the concrete masonry in place since it was already standing when we moved in. I suppose the recent flurry of activity next door is an attempt to get as much work done before the rainy season sets in.
Sharon Kathleen Barclay
© 2006
