Typical Sunday Activities in SE Asia

 A quiet Sunday afternoon of baking (me), scrapbooking (Valerie), and napping (Becca) suddenly got interrupted when I decided to be kind to our house helper and do some of the mound of dishes that had accumulated in the sink. With the rinse water already in the tea kettle on the stove, I turned on the faucet to begin soaping up the dishes.

  The knob turned, and then, the faucet came completely off of the pipe, gushing, and I mean, gushing water into the kitchen!!

 As I was trying to see what the problem was so I could stop the water, I essentially was standing in front of a fire hydrant, luckily blocking most of the water from directly hitting my computer which sat behind me. I screamed, and Valerie came to my rescue, shutting off the water supply through that pipe.

 After mopping up the flooded kitchen, wiping down the wet cabinets and counters, and bringing the fan into the kitchen to prevent mold, we set to work on fixing the problem because, as perfect timing would have it, all of the men on our team left today for a week long conference. We have to place some kind of plug where the kitchen faucet used to be because if we shut off the water to the kitchen, we shut off the water to the bathroom too, which means no showers or flushing the toilet. Problematic, to say the least. But, necessity is the mother of invention...and we have a scientist living among us!

 Yes, this is a bunched up sponge tied around with rubber bands. We didn't really use the wrench, it just added special effect for the picture.

 In order to limit the use of water going through that pipe, we used the pipe in the garage to fill up buckets of water which we then dumped in our "tub" in the bathroom. Now we can flush the toilet SE Asian style with cups of water from here. And, if the sponge/rubber band concoction doesn't solve the shower issue, we can use this water to shower SE Asian style as well.

We were dying laughing through this whole thing. We kept saying, "Just think! There's no way we would have experienced a Sunday afternoon like this in the states!" Oftentimes, it's comical living in another country! But, hey, now I know what to do when the kitchen faucet comes off the pipe and the water is turned on! Those are valuable things to know, you know!