Kathryn's Peace Corps Adventure

The opinions expressed and experiences described in this blog are mine personally. Any musings that you read here are not affiliated or endorsed by Peace Corps or U.S. government. Or Starbucks. And I'm not making any money from any of this, so don't send a lawsuit my way. Got it?

Monday, February 13, 2006

splish splash

Drum roll please.....
My house is ready!!!!!

I spent most of yesterday having neighborhood kids help me move my stuff up to the new house. I didn't have too much stuff but because I had so many manuals and only 1 large backpack, it took several trips to bring stuff up the mountain. After moving the stuff up, we played hide and seek in my "backyard" (not exactly a yard but I do have several fruit trees) and tag in the empty house, which lasted just long enough for dirty kids to put their dirty handprints all over my freshly painted walls. (Just part of the experience.)

I am not living there officially because I have no bed and no table top stove (to boil my water..a necessity) so I am still sleeping in the cell and having my meals with my host family. After lunch, I went back to the new house to try and arrange some of my things. I went into the bathroom to turn on the faucet to the sink to see what water pressure was like and I hear a loud burst. I run outside to the back of the house and see that a pipe has burst and there is water gushing everywhere. Being the nutcase that I am, the first thing I do is grab a bucket and pace it under the pipe to collect the water (why? I didn't know what else to do so I figured I would try to at least not waste water) then I tried to fuse the pipes back together and ended up drenched.

So I'm standing in my house, soaking wet, feeling like a total idiot, listening to water overflowing everywhere in the back. After a few minutes of serious contemplation (do I try to fix it again and end up even more wet? do I admit defeat and go get my host family to help me? do I just ignore the problem and hope it go away?), I go out to the back of the house and try to fuse the pipes again. I grab the pipes, cover the one with the water coming out with my thumb, end up spraying water directly into my face (great a bunch of unpurified water in my mouth? hello parasites!) After a minute or two of fighting with the pipes I eventually get them reconnected. I also manage to:
1. cut my finger badly in the process (now I'm not only drenched, but blood is oozing out of my finger)
2. look like I just came off a water ride from Six Flags
3. really feel like an idiot

But it's fixed. I changed my clothes because there was no way that I was going to go back to my host family looking like I took a shower in my clothes and I did not want to explain the story to them (that would be a clear indicator that I am for sure a gringa). I started to laugh and couldn't stop because I was so embarassed/confused/overwhelmed/soaked that there was nothing else I could do.

I am also afraid to turn on the water to the bathroom sink now in fear that it could happen again. Isn't it pathetic that I'm afraid of a sink?

1 Comments:

  • At 8:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Well, if you decide to turn the faucet on, remember to protect yourself with a plastic bag diaper to prevent yeast infection :)

     

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