Not a drop to drink

Since Joelle and I got here our bathroom sink has had a leak in one of the pipes. We have had a bowl and bucket underneath it to catch the water. When we came back from Shanghai and stepped into the bathroom we were greeted by a wet floor and a bucket and bowl overflowing with water (see below). The pipe has been leaking more and more water as the days go by, but we never thought to get someone to fix it.


So, the other night I decided to make some brownie mix to ease the pain of a hard day of teaching. I found a pot in the supply closet, but it was kind of dirty. So, I took it to my sink, turned on the hot water, and rubbed off the dirt with hand soap. (yes, we are very sanitary in China). When it was clean, I turned the tap off. Then I screamed. The water had started coming full blast out from under the counter! (imagine water coming out ... )

Not only was the water coming out of the leak in the pipe ... it started streaming through the side of the counter at this spot (see below!). Water everywhere!

All I could think to do was look at the leak and yell. Joelle came over and started yelling too! Pretty soon everyone was at our door thinking, "that must be a pretty big bug". The pipe actually ended up breaking off at one end so we started filling up the bucket with water, dumping it in the tub, filling it up again, dumping it again, filling, dumping, filling, dumping. Joelle was pretty wet! Meanwhile, we called Andy (our Chinese handy-man who works at the school) and he came over to check it out. He looked at it, called the plumber, and somehow shoved a stick into the pipes to stop the water.

As the plumber worked, we waited outside my room talking. Blah blah blah. Talk talk talk. Then we hear Andy say something that sounded like "who's beer?" Haha, we started joking about how I have a secret beer stash in the bathroom, and then wondered what he actually said. Suddenly Denny's like "wow, there really is beer!" And there really was. There is a "secret" closet in the bathroom (see above) that I never could get open, but you can access the pipes through it. The plumber looked inside and found a plastic bag full of empty bottles of brandy and heineken!!! The girls that lived here last must have been having a little too much fun in the bathroom.

Once everyone left (and we had a good laugh about the beer) we disposed of the bottles, mopped up the floor, and admired our new non-leaking pipe. And yes, I did make my brownie mix. So worth it!