Another Water Adventure

Our water is still out, not making it up into our tank, and therefore, not making it into our house. The builders of our summer hut need a good bit of water for the cement each day, so what little water we’ve had has gotten eaten up pretty well. Last night, Matt determined that we would need to go to the bore hole and get water for the next day. We would need to use the brothers’ truck, so we offered to get them water as well, and we needed water for drinking and cooking too. This big job called for us to borrow the school’s massive 1000 Liter container, so we called the boarding master and made sure it was okay for us to borrow it. “No problem,” he said.

Matt and I made plans to leave after our community meeting which we said would end at 9PM. Shortly after 9, we went over to the brothers, hopped in the truck, and headed over to the kitchen to load up the container. When we got there, however, we found that the container was half full, making it practically impossible to move!

We decided on a plan of action to go back home, grab all our big buckets, and then proceed to empty the massive container by dipping buckets into the top and pulling the buckets out like we would from a well. I found some rubber bungee cord in the truck and quickly mastered the skill of throwing the bucket down into the container and pulling a full bucket back up. After filling up a few large containers in the back of the truck, Matt asked if I needed a break, and I took him up on it. On Matt’s second attempt, I heard a plop followed by an “Oh, crap!” I looked at Matt and he sheepishly responded, “I let go of the cord, and so the bucket is stuck down there.” Okay, that’s understandable, I thought. I pulled a metal rod out of the truck and used it to fish for the bucket. I gave it back to Matt, and he went back to pulling up the water. About four buckets later I hear, “Shit!” as Matt starts to laugh. Before I even looked at him, I knew he had let go of the cord again. He was holding a flashlight in one of his hands, and when he threw the bucket down, he grabbed onto the small string hanging from the flashlight. Unfortunately, that string had nothing to do with the bucket, and our fetching pail was once again floating at the bottom of the huge container, well out of arm’s reach.

“You’re fired,” I nonchalantly told him.

I pulled the bucket back up, and finished emptying the container myself. I did find the humor in Matt’s mistakes, and we chuckled about it as I pulled up the last few buckets.

At some point during all of this, we saw the Headmaster walking over with is flashlight. The sound of the bucket hitting the water made a loud plop, so we figured he had heard the noise from his house and came over to investigate. He asked us what we were doing, we explained the story, and then he said “Okay,” walking away, probably thinking we were crazy Muzungus with some crazy idea.

After we got the water level down low enough, we decided to see if we could get the container into the back of the truck. With the help of the night watchmen, who did an excellent job of watching us two Muzungus make fools of our self throughout the process, we heaved the container up into the back of the truck. Alright, we were ready to go!

We saw the large lid to the container sitting on the ground, and, though we had never seen it used, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to put it on the lid. Matt hopped up into the truck bed, and I lifted the lid up to him. He tried unsuccessfully to put the lid on for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden, I heard the lid sliding and looked up in just enough time to see the massive lid fall into the giant container. Matt, myself, and the night watchmen all broke into hysterical laughing. Best of all, the top of the container was absolutely covered in dirt, so now the 50 liters or so of water in the bottom of the container were unfit for drinking. After composing ourselves, I hopped up and pulled the lid out. I tried to get it on myself, but found that the lid definitely did not fit anymore. I think the container had been used enough times that the shape didn’t match up with the lid anymore.

We were then on our way. But first, we had to dump out the dirty water that was now in the container and drop off the couple of buckets we had filled while emptying the large container. We headed back towards our house, taking our time, so as not to lose any of the precious water.

On the way, I noticed some large bugs crawling across the path. They looked like roaches, and there were at least twenty of them so I tried to steer the truck so as to hit them. Right as we drove over them, I heard all kinds of loud crunching and scrapping. My face fell flat in shock of the loudness of the bugs being crushed. I looked over to Matt, and he had the same look. How did those bugs make such a loud crunch? He then looked back, and said, “OOHHHH, that was the tree!” The container stood several feet above the cab, and coincidentally, the container crashed into the overhead branches of a tree, just as we drove over the crowd of roaches. Both of us were so amused by our mistaken thought, that we began laughing hysterically once again! So much so, that when we got back to the house and met Molly, we had tears coming out of our eyes as we continued to laughed. She asked us what was wrong, but it took us some time to compose ourselves enough to explain how what had just happened. We both legitimately thought for a few moments that the loud crashing of branches was the sound of roaches being crushed under the tires of our truck.

We then unloaded the water, dumping the dirty water from the container onto our banana trees. It was pretty cool to see so much water waterfall out of the container. We then made our way to the bore-hole. Everything there were as usual, so I’m move onto the next and final experience of our adventure.

We made it all the way home to the 300 meter long drive up a sandy hill that leads to Chaminade’s campus. As we started up the hill, I noticed the engine having some trouble. I was pushing the accelerator and seemed to be in the right gear, but the truck was struggling just to get up the hill. About half way up, we noticed the temperature gauge begin to climb. The engine was overheating! We both recalled Tuesday, when we went shopping with the brothers, and the filling station attendant told one of the brothers that the truck was low on engine coolant. We figured that he had forgotten to get it changed, and we were now overheating. I stopped, turned off the truck, and we decided to roll backwards down the hill to a flat spot where it would be easier to get the truck started again. I suggested that we take some of the water we just picked up and put in the engine, just to make it home.

After popping open the hood, finding the coolant tank, and getting some water ready to pour in, we prepared to open up the cap to the tank. Matt reached for the cap but before he got to it, I said, “Wait, we should get a rag or something so the steam doesn’t burn us.” We couldn’t find a rag, so Matt took off his shirt, and soaked it with water. With me standing a few feet away, Matt reached for the cap and gave it a small turn. He reached again, and turned it a little more. The third time he reached in, the cap suddenly burst off sending engine coolant spraying 15 feet into the air. Matt instantly began running up the hill. In shock, I stood there for a moment before realizing that I should run as well. We both ran about 30 feet away before turning back to see the engine still spraying coolant up into the air. It lasted at least 10-15 seconds. And both of us looked at each other with “Holy Shit!” looks. I asked Matt if he got burned, and he was fine. I was too was standing far enough away and didn’t get sprayed with anything. At that point, we decided to call the brothers and get them to come help us out. It was past 11PM, so we hadn’t wanted to wake him, but when the car your driving explodes, it’s usually a good idea to call the owner.

About 10-15 minutes later, the brothers come driving down the hill to our rescue. Brother Paul surveys the situation and has a good feel for what happened. He showed us how to pour the coolant in, which was a good thing, because had I done it, I would have poured too much of our cold water right into the engine. Bro. Paul showed us that you need to put small amounts of warm water in so that it has time to heat up before it gets into the engine. If you put a lot of cold water in all at once, the temperature difference between the water and the engine could be too great and cause some damage to the engine.

After filling up the coolant line with water, we closed up the hood and headed back to the house. It was midnight by the time I got into bed; so much for a quick run to the bore hole.