One of the things that has surprised me here is the attitude
toward water. Whereas I had expected that people would be very conservative,
using only the smallest amounts for washing or cooking, I found that this was
not the case. Not that water is wasted—the soapy rinse water in the laundry tub
becomes the soapy water for the next load of clothes; water that has been used
for soaking vegetables will then be used to wash the knife that chopped the
vegetables and the bowl that held them. But I’ve also seen dishpans of water just
poured out and refilled with seemingly no care. So, early in my stay, I asked
Karen if water was expensive and learned that it was not. Her average water
bill (when she doesn’t have grass to water) was less than 5000 CFA per month.
(roughly $10).
The water bills I got after moving confirmed the information. They were for 2500 to 3000 CFA per month. Until March. The bill was delivered while I was at school, but Viviane was here to welcome the Water Company employee. Having never witnessed it, I don’t know how it is done, but I think the employee reads the meter and prints out the bill right then.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the bill (it was folded)
and saw the bottom line: I owed 437, 751 CFA!!! I read and re-read the bill
trying to understand how it could be so high. Since, in French numbering systems, commas are used for decimal points and vice versa, I kept thinking that perhaps it was only 437 francs. Then I thought that I had
somehow received someone else’s bill, but that was contradicted by the fact that the
name and number on it were the same as those on my previous bills. So I began
to hope that it was some kind of computer glitch, and made plans to stop at the
water company the next day.
Thus began a week of almost daily visits to that office. At my
first visit, only the cashier was there. I showed him the bill and expressed my
desire that there be some mistake. He looked up the account and assured me that
there was no error. However, he did recognize that something had to be going on
because of my previous payments. He told me to come back before closing to talk
to a manager.
The manager was able to shed some light on the situation. According
to him, the house had sat empty for two years, so that the meter reading displayed
on the bill was the first since April of 2020. We—he, the cashier, and I—all rode
to my house in a company truck so he could check the reading. It was, he said,
correct. He knew that I had only lived in the house since January, so he
assured me that I was not expected to pay the full amount. However, he did not
have enough authority to tell me what I should pay, so I was supposed to return
to the office on the following Tuesday, when his superior would be in. In the
meantime he urged me to get in touch with the landlady concerning the bill.
Tuesday morning I waited until 9 to walk to the water
company. The man still had not arrived and no one knew when or if he would. The
cashier knows where I live, so he said he would send someone to get me when the
guy arrived. He again stressed that I needed to contact the homeowner. I had
told Hammer about the situation and had asked him to get in touch with the
rental agent, but I decided to go by his house on the way home and repeat the
request. I asked him what I should do other than that, and he said, “nothing.”
So here I am in Water Bill Limbo, waiting for Hammer to get
the word to the landlady and for the Water Company to decide what I should pay.
It occurred to me that, if the house were empty, it would
still be hard to accumulate that kind of water bill. If the average is less
than 5000 per month, a two year total should be around 120,000. But just in
case I called in a plumber to fix a leaky faucet!
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