Castigo, O Canalizador  
Or Punishment, the Plumber

So, while Moz19 PCVs are living it up in Maputo for Mid-Service Conference, yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Castigo, o canalizador, which translates as "Punishment, the Plumber."  I suppose the name Castigo could also be interpreted as "I punish" or "The Punisher."  But no matter how you render the Portuguese, there's no way to sugar-coat it.

Canalizador sounds real fancy, though.

                                   

Here's what happened:  Monday morning I woke up to the noise of water pouring somewhere in my bathroom.  Sunday, before folks came over for Texas Hold'em, I had asked friends to bring me tools to fix the leak in my faucet.  No one, unfortunately, had a screwdriver, which was necessary to unlock and fix the leaky faucet.  And since everything is closed on Sunday, there's no other choice but to wait till the next day.  What was a leak then became Vic Falls the following day.  I called PC staff Osvaldo, thinking that no one at UCM would be able to help (most are still on vacation).  Osvaldo was right on the ball, calling me back within a few minutes, informing me that a UCM plumber was on his way and texting me the number of his UCM contact.

So, along came Punishment, the plumber.  Of course, it took him a good 3 hours to arrive at around 11am.  And when he did, he estou a pedir'ed for a knife, because he didn't have a screwdriver himself.  In fact, he brought no tools whatsoever.  He diagnosed the problem, and told me he'd be back with the necessary tools.  This was close to lunch time, so he wouldn't return till 3pm.

Meanwhile, I filled up two big vacias (buckets), collecting the water from my sink.  I could have filled four more, had I more vacias.

Castigo arrived in the afternoon and he proceeded to switch the leaky faucet with the good one.  I tried asking him the rationale behind this, because I would still have the leaky faucet on the other side of the sink.  With his husky voice, he explained it'll work on the other side, which was no explanation at all.

When Castigo finished switching the two faucets in the sink, no water came out.  Great, I thought.  At least there's no more leaking.  It turns out that FIPAG (Fundo de Investimento e Património do Abastecimento de Água / Investment Foundation and Patrimony for the Sourcing of Water) had shut off the water, which they regularly do at night from 9:30pm to 6am--not at 4pm.

So Castigo left around 4pm.  A couple of hours later, when the water came back on, I saw a puddle on my bathroom floor.  The leak in the faucet was replaced by a leaky tube under the sink.  When I touched it, the casing that held the tube to the wall broke, and the water burst.  Now I had Lake Niassa on my bathroom floor.  

I called Castigo, told him the situation, and asked that he come back.  He said he would come tomorrow at 8am.  Fine, I told him.  I'll just shut off the water valve from the outside of the house--something he had shown me on his second visit that day.  So I did.  Got back to the house.  Started mopping the water that now flowed to the hallway outside the bathroom, when I got a call from Castigo.  He'd keep breaking off, had a bad reception, but I got the message that he was in a chapa and was coming to my house.  After about an hour of mopping the floor, Punishment finally arrived, for the third time that day, to save the night.  

Well, sort of.  He again had to diagnose where the leak was, so I had to go out to switch the main water valve back on.  I had to turn the valve on and off three times, which re-produced Lake Niassa on my floor, before he determined that the tube cannot be salvaged and that he would need to plug that one pipe.  He plugged the pipe with some sort of clay padding, which needed to dry over-night.  I asked Castigo if the padding was sufficient and told him I would call him again tomorrow if it wasn't.  I was truly astonished that he came back that evening, and thanked him for doing so as he left my house.  

At the end of the day, as I took my cold bucket bath, I just wondered, how are the showers in Pensão Martins where the 19ers are staying for their Conference in Maputo?  What orgiastic all-nighters could they be ensconced in right now?  And how the hell did I piss off the gods that they'd send me Punishment three times in one day?