I do so hope you can see these pictures clearly. This is several official men, including a uniformed security guard (later joined by a second), trying to clear up a major leak from a manhole cover in our courtyard by sweeping at it with broomsticks - proper ones, as ridden by the Wicked Witch of the West (though of course she'd have melted in so much water).
This was the scene I came home to today - about three inches of water outside our front door due to I don't know what, but enough to make them shut off the water to the whole building earlier, without warning or explanation.
This was somewhat disturbing because we pay for our water by the primitive means of a card inserted into a meter under the sink. When I asked our interpreter, Kevin, what would happen when this ran out, he said, 'The water will stop', as if this was the most obvious and normal thing in the world. Our landlords had offered to pay for the water for a year in advance for us, but as they'd failed to get a fa piao, Kevin had sucked his teeth in a jobsworth manner and they took the card away.
Hence my panic today, but fortunately Kevin's phone was engaged, and I was just about to go over to the office to harangue him when an almighty gurgling erupted from our toilets and the water came back on.
Three inches of water outside the house? They're just trying to make you feel at home!
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