Water, water - not quite everywhere...

Last week or so was kind of a landmark: we got our first bill from Ghana Water Company in nearly two years! And surprisingly, or maybe I should say, not unsurprisingly, we were still in credit! Probably the latter actually, as we've had to buy water almost every week or ten days (the latter if we are lucky) for more than eighteen months, but for several months I paid something on account.

I had had actually had "Go to GWC and find out about bills" on my To Do list for quite time, but in the way of things, I hadn't done anything about it! Mainly I admit because our local GWC office is only open when I am at work, so if I really wanted to go there I would have to leave work early, and knowing my luck, I would get there only to be told that they had closed!

Together with the water bill, last weekend the pressure was sufficient for the water in the mains to actually come to the tanks on the top of the house - which was the first time this had happened in several months... and it actually happened twice. Unfortunately our tanks are a bit old, and the mechanism to stop the water coming in when they are full doesn't work properly, so usually I will hear the overflow and then go and turn off the tap - not too much fun if one is only half awake though! Not terribly efficient, but it does do the job. The question now is: should I get the plumber to come and see what he can do about making this automatic rather than done by a human being?

So, did we all think that our water problems were over, and that we would just have to monitor the days on which the mains served this area? Yes, of course... but we should have remembered where we were, because over the last few days, it doesn't look anything has come up so we'll probably have to order the tanker again...

Oh well, he will be happy.

Water - steps to getting it through the pipes?

We've not had water flowing through our mains pipes for more than a year - due to construction of large pipelines from Weija in the west of Accra to the east of Accra. We saw the big pipes being put into the group - and in fact our road was blocked for a week. Then there were some technicians who did something like connecting smaller pipes to it, and then the road was covered, and ... and ... no water...

Except in the last couple of weeks there would be mornings when the road outside the house (not paved) would be covered in a large pool of water, which every single vehicle would try to avoid - not with much success I must add.

And then we heard that people from the water company were able to connect houses/compounds to the mains supply for a specified sum... We waited. And eventually someone in an official uniform showed up, named the amount, but when asked about an official receipt, the impression was given that there wouldn't be one.

D and others have been to the local district office of the water company to see if we can be reconnected officially. I dredged up some old bills - feeling rather guilty that I hadn't paid anything since September 2008. Not to worry: we were actually in credit! and officials even said they were impressed that we paid on account so regularly.

But have we been connected yet? Noooo... not yet.

The saga continues, and we will buy another tanker load of water at the weekend. Sigh.