Public Works and other Business

We had a disaster this morning after some rain in the night – the drains all blocked up again! At first it wasn’t too bad, but we noticed that the back yard was getting more and more flooded, despite the rain having stopped some time before. Then we saw that water was actually pumping out of the drain instead of running into it. We phoned the drainage section of Public Works and they were pretty quick in getting to us. By then the water had subsided, but another quick downpour filled us up again, this time with sewerage. Nick had the quick presence of mind to put something over the bigger drain, to disallow the really big pieces from getting out, but not before toilet paper bits and cigarette butts had distributed themselves across the cement and bricks. The drainage chaps took a long time to find the actual problem – they opened up our drain in the alley, where the cockroaches were delighting in the sudden influx of edibles, but the problem wasn’t there. Eventually they tracked it down to a blockage a bit further up the road, forcing everything to come into our drain. The sewerage lines in St Helena weren’t really designed with high usage in mind. The blockage was big blobs of congealed grease – people don’t realise that pouring fat and oil down the sink is not a good idea. Nick spent the entire morning sweeping water off the bricks, helping the drainage people, and cleaning up the mess. This didn’t help his sermon prep any!

George came for his German lesson as usual this afternoon, and I simply read from a book called “Max und Moritz”, about two very naughty boys and the pranks they pull. Caleb and Aaron sat on the couch and listened too. Then I let all the boys play, until Svetlana came for Georgie at 4.