Water blogged

Perhaps you have read in the news about China's current water crisis.  It is interesting that they planned on diverting water from the south to the north because of the long drought.  Of course in the past few weeks there has been plenty of rain.  So much in fact, that it temporarily stopped transportation in some areas.  I also am experiencing my own water crisis of sorts.  About a week or so ago I went to wash my hands and nothing came out.  It looked like our water had been turned off.  I asked Sam: "Did you see any notice about someone coming to check our water meter?"  After some discussion we just figured we must have had an unknown bill that needed to be paid.  That kind of thing happens here.  (Some friends of ours had their water turned off with no warning and no bill.  They apparently had to pre-pay for their water.)  It was my turn to deal with any new bill or crisis so I went down stairs to ask what happened.  It turned out we were not the only ones without water.  The whole building had no water, no warning, no reason as to why, and no good estimate as to when it would turn back on.  *sigh* Typical.  The water company sent a big truck with water spouts on it for people to fill up as many buckets as they could.  It was disconcerting to say the least.  But later that night the water was miraculously back on!  I was so happy to take my shower.

Today I am experiencing the opposite water affliction.  When we woke up this morning we heard a drip from the shower.  At first we thought maybe I didn't properly turn the water spout off from the night before.  I really believed it too because I thought I heard Sam fix it.  But, when we got home from school there was a small puddle in the bathroom.  Sam worked on it again and it seemed to go down to a small drip.  I thought to myself: "one of us should probably call our landlord but Sam doesn't seem too worried so maybe its not a big deal"  I was wrong.  After Sam left for work I decided to take a shower before starting my two hour telephone tutoring.  That was a big mistake.  When I turned the water off it went from a small trickle to a small dripping stream.  I thought: "this isn't good.  I'll call Sam"  He told me to call the landlord and he also instructed me to turn some knobs on our water heater.  That did not stop the water so... I looked at my phone and thought: "just one more try"- bad idea. This time I actually heard the little piece inside the faucet snap completely.  It went from a small dripping stream to a full on steady one.  Lots of water.   This time I called our landlord.  Fortunately she speaks english but she failed to realize how bad my situation was.  She said to me : "My husband is out of town. Maybe we can come by this weekend to take a look?"  I said "uh no.  It needs to be sooner. Much sooner.  There is a lot of water"  Then she said "okay we can come tomorrow night"   That really wasn't good enough.  I said to her "okay but the water needs to be turned off and I don't know how."  She then proceeded to give me directions on how to turn the water off....except it was in chinese.  I don't know if I could figure out how to turn off the water with english instructions but in chinese it is a definite NO.  I told her I didn't understand but that I would see if Sam could turn it off when got home.  That was almost three hours ago and I'm still waiting for Sam to come home.  I feel really guilty about it too because here we are in a water crisis and I'm wasting it by the second.  So now I'm sitting in the living room listening to the not very calming stream in my bathroom.......

....to be continued.....