Water is a precious commodity

Woke up one morning to find this........

Main water meter leak

 
This is my main water meter outside the front garden wall.  As you can see, it's coming out at a pretty good clip.
Naturally concerned, I contacted the customer service centre at the Water Authority to lodge a report. "How soon can I expect it to be fixed?"   "I'm not sure Ma'am, someone will get back to you." Not sure how to handle this response, I thanked her and hung up.

I had no idea how long this was leaking before I  (or rather Brownie) discovered it. The area around the meter was water logged and I had scary thoughts of my compromised front wall toppling over.
Not only that, my mother's voice was ringing in my ears about water wastage and how some people in the world have no water to drink.....

Called again the following day, "Ma'am we have your report in the system." "So how soon will it be fixed?"  "I don't know Ma'am, I have passed on your report to the appropriate department." Once again, I thanked her and hung up.
One more call, and I managed to find a service rep who seemed to understand my plight and gave me a number to call at another location.  Yippee, I'm getting somewhere.
"Ma'am, your report has been logged into the service schedule."  "I have been calling for several days now, and I still have no idea how soon it will be fixed....the water is going to waste."  Her answer takes the cake, "Ma'am the leak is from our side of the meter so you don't have to worry about your water bill going up."  WHAT?????  Water is such a scarce resource, and yet this nonchalance was the norm.  "Excuse me, my front wall is compromised even as we speak."  "I can give you another number to try Ma'am."  "Thank you."


Yet another call to another division, where thank heavens a very nice lady answered the phone, and told me exactly where to call and who to ask for.  This I did, and a VERY NICE gentleman told me that he was going into a one hour meeting, and he and his crew will come out afterwards.

Wasn't getting too excited about this promise, so I continued with my daily chores.

In a little while, my daughter shouted to me that the Water crew guys were outside.

I have noted before on this blog how the government service crews work, and this time was no different.  Many guys came on the truck, but only one guy was actually doing the work of fixing the leak.

As usual, the others stood around watching and talking, and admiring the bunches of coconuts in my neighbour's trees.

However, when it was all over, the meter leak was fixed, and I thanked them.  I mentioned about the wall, and they laughed and told me which division to call if it came toppling over, and off they went.