subject: Never Rely On Your Plumbing Expectations [print this page] We in the 21st Century living in a developed Country are absolutely, absolutely spoiled. Just ask anybody who is living in a developing Country.
Better still ; try living in one yourself for some considerable time instead of just passing thru as a holiday maker living in five star luxuries.
It was 20 years ago that I lived in Malaysia for 3 years. I loved living in Georgetown on Penang Island. The people were beautiful, the scenery breathtaking and the food from the Mukan stall's delicious and cheap.
Some of the backstreets though where the poorer people lived and survived were not always so delectable or pleasant. The open "Mony drains" were either so deep you would think they were dug out by a miner, or so shallow they were virtually useless. Mony drains were short for monsoon drains due to the tropical downpours that came through every 3 months as the monsoon passed over on its way south then on its way north again.
Now this is where I really appreciated plumbing. We, of course, being among the blessed elite, had 'normal' plumbing in our house with running water.
The difference was this water was released into our outside "mony drain" that ran around our house and into a bigger drain which ran into a bigger drain etc till it ran out to where ever was the great meeting place for all mony drains.
Every week our wonderful, cheerful gardener came with his tin of 'goodies', hard scrubbing brush and scrubbed our drains for us.
There had been one outside tap to be used in the garden which was found at the front of our place. On this tap we had a long hose that reached round the back of our place. Yes, you are right, Nothing peculiar about that.
We lived in a cul-de-sac with 3 houses. The last house had a really beautiful garden with a very attractive spirit house out the back. If I had been an ancestor, I would have been honoured to have lived there but I was a neighbour instead.
But as neighbors, we had an issue that went beyond different languages.
Their gardener raked the leaves off their perfect lawn and burned them in front of our house. Often long after our Amah Devi had put the washing on the line to dry.
Because it 'got smoked,' she used to bring it in and re-do it, which really wasn't remotely fair.
We asked nicely, we asked again, and repeatedly. We chatted with the owner of the house, his better half, the mother-in-law granny, the gardener many times. We actually had a barrister write a letter to them in Bahasa demanding that they stop causing us that difficulty.
But they continued to spark the fire to burn the leaves immediately out the front of our home.
This actual day I came back from walking the youngsters to the high school bus and they were out the front about to get the fire going again. I approached them and asked them not to and pointed towards the washing hanging on our line. It was actually the grandmama and the gardener and she was telling the gardener to pay no mind to me and get the fire going. He continued to hesitate because he used to be a kind hearted man and knew he was causing additional work for Devi.
I pointed at the tap in front of our house and went and got the hose. I turned the tap on full-bore, kinked the hose to hold the water back and hauled it thru the front gate to where the fire was now burning.
I unkinked the hose expecting to see the common gush of water sprout forth and it went drip...drip...drip...
I could not help myself. I burst out guffawing and giggling and the grandma joined in. The gardener failed to quite know what to do but his smile stated that it all.
The gramps came over and gave me a kindly pat on the arm, said to the gardener to put the fire out and whatever else she announced but we haven't ever had a fire lit there again.
Now that was likely the single time in my life I've been thankful for bad plumbing.
