The Battle of Water-Loo

Please do not let the title deceive you.  Napoleon is still dead, and the conflict responsible for the end of the Little General’s empire has nothing to do with South Africa (though the island, St Helena, that he was exiled to did do a bustling trade with this area when it was still under the control of the Dutch East India Company).  No, unfortunately, this battle of Waterloo is all about water, a loo, and a dumb American.

For those of you who are not already aware, I am living in a province of South Africa called the Northern Cape, which has a semi-desert climate.  We are right on the edge of the Kalahari desert, so getting access to water can be somewhat of a problem many times.  I do have a tap with running water that is located outside my house in my backyard and that tap just so happens to be connected to the same pipe that supplies water to my flush toilet, also outside.  For all of those who just made a face, I too was a little uncomfortable at first with the close proximity of the two facilities.

Like I said before, though, this is desert area so water is scarce, meaning the tap only has water about 1 or 2 days out of the week.  The other times when you turn it on, nothing comes out, and the faucet just laughs at you for actually believing that it would deign to give you water that day.  Well, yesterday, I went to check if water was available by turning on the tap.  Naturally, there was none, but I apparently forgot to turn the tap back off before going to bed.  The faucet, of course noticing the situation and taking full advantage, managed to gain access to some H₂O at some point in the night.  This would be all well and good with a faucet that drained into a regular wastewater system, but regrettably, my spigot drains directly into my backyard.  So when I awoke this morning, I found that the Spencer River had opened for business and gushed all the way through my backyard into the street in front of my house.  Keep in mind that this is a dirt yard and dirt street we’re talking about.  Interestingly enough, the water had stopped flowing, not because the water was no longer accessible, but because the tap had been turned off.  All I can think of is that some kind soul (or rather one angry at the stupid American for wasting water), saw the overflow this morning and walked into my backyard to turn off the spigot.

Whatever the case, there was a long flow of mud and water in the street that any passerby could easily trace back through my yard to the location of my toilet.  Given that no unpleasant scents were involved, I’m hoping that my neighbors realize what happened rather than coming to the conclusion that the American caused a backed up toilet to result in a sewage flow into the street.  Oh well, when I returned home from school today, the mud and water had all dried up for the most part, and none of the neighbors seemed to be any less warm in their greetings.  Needless to say, though, my tap was firmly shut off before retreating into my house tonight.

One final thing, I’ve been picking up quite a few South African English words recently and figured I would start leaving a kind of word of the day with my posts.  Today’s word is:

lekker – good; pleasant

Afrikaans, from Dutch, literally “delicious”

“I've got a nice place on the river with a deck and everything.  It's really lekker.”