A Rainy Hike in the City

So sorry I haven't posted recently. Things here have been a bit CRAZY for the last few weeks. I'm not sure whether they are going to settle down any or not, but I'm hoping for just a little slowdown.

Yesterday (Friday) was quite busy. I picked up a new contract (building a website for a landowner company here) in the afternoon and finished off the day about 5pm. I had one of the boss' daughters with me, however, and couldn't leave until her mom stopped by to pick her up. About an hour before we left, we had quite a bit of rainfall in a short time. Leo called from the apartment to inform me that the only water intrusion we had was on the wall above the kitchen sink. That was good news.

When Mom finally showed up to pick up my charge, I offered a friend a lift and she and I headed to my apartment. When I arrived, with a suitcase full of computing equipment and homework papers, I discovered that the lift was out of order and water was POURING down the stairwell.

Sigh.

I drove back to work to put my toys away then went back to the apartment. I shifted my bilum (woven purse) to the outside arm--water was pouring down the stairwell inside--and began my hike up the 11 stories (22 flights) to my apartment.

"Where is all this water coming from," I kept thinking. "Why is it pouring down the stairwell?" "How can there be no flooding in my apartment but this much flooding on the upper story?"

When I reached the 9th floor, I began to hear noises above me. By the 10th floor, I began to giggle about the whole situation. Sure enough, when I approached the 11th floor, I could see the door was propped open and had to avoid a worker who was mopping up the water that had leaked into the hall near the elevator, putting it into a garbage can, pulling it over to the stairwell, and pouring it out! LOL! The whole time I was hiking up the stairs there was a man at the top pouring water down on top of me!

In case you don't know it, I live in an apartment that leaks like a sieve. I've done really well in the past few months because we are in the dry season here; the rainy season doesn't start for another 3-6 weeks. For the past 3 weeks, workers have been on the roof every day attempting to make roof repairs. At the moment, it appears they have stripped away the roofing on the area near the center of the building, allowing for water intrusion there, in the hallway, near the elevator. Although Leo was really concerned about my long hike and the fact that I arrived home drenched, I really got a good laugh out of it. "Typical life in PNG," was all I could think!