Kettle baths and loads of laundry

In my previous post, I reported on how there was no water in Grahamstown. Here are some details on living in these conditions. Not to be read by the weak-of-stomach...

The water supply was dodgy from Sunday lunchtime, something we became aware of as we were served our lunch on polystyrene plates with plastic knives and forks. This is becoming more and more of a problem, as it is now Wednesday, and we are still unable to flush our toilets, or have a shower.

Luckily, we have rainwater tanks behind our building. Unfortunately, it hasn't rained in a few weeks, so this supply is dwindling as well (unsurprisingly, as it has to cater to the water needs of 73 girls), and our neighbouring building of 88 boys has run out of their rainwater supply completely, so I hear.

I had my first kettle bath yesterday. I am fortunate to have a sink in my room: I don't know how I would feel about bathing from a sink in the bathroom where people come, do their business, and leave, unable to flush after themselves, and leaving a horrible smell behind them. You come into the building, and you are just hit by a wall of odours, emanating from bodies who, like me, have been unable to shower as often as they might have, and who, apparently, don't know how to fill up a bucket of water to flush the toilet after themselves. It is severely unpleasant.

This morning I decided the kettle bath wouldn't work for me, so I went down to the gym where there was rumoured to be water. Apparently I was not the only one to have heard such rumours: the change rooms, which are normally otherwise fairly empty at 6:30 am, was full, the floors wet, as ladies endured harsh conditions. My shower was brief: it was cold, with little water pressure (a huge disappointment, as the gym pressure is normally exceptionally good). One of the showers was blocked, verging on flooding. But I got to wash my hair, and my whole body. I now wait with anticipation for the water to come back, dreading the possibility of it not returning before my Spinning class that I have to instruct later today (the uniform for which I have to wash by hand, again).

My laundry is piling up: it was my intention to do laundry the other afternoon. I could have done it in the morning, but I was procrastinating. "It's fine, I'll do it this afternoon!" I had thought. I will never put off doing my laundry again: I am nearly down to my last set of underwear, and I am running out of laundry "shelf" space (the laundry basket was full a very long time ago).

Hold thumbs that pressure returns the water to us on the hill soon, and I am able to clean myself before I return home on Friday: we wouldn't want my mother thinking I am unable to look after myself at university.

Weekly digest #3

Fans disappointed that their mail isn't read by their heroes : Over-decorated and generic letters addressed to Taylor Swift were found in the recycling bin, to the dismay of those who sent it. Her management team were quick to claim that this disposal had been done accidentally, of course. How do fans expect every single one of their letters to be read, why would they think that theirs is so important and has something so new and interesting to say, that their celebrity sweetheart would take the time out of their busy and famous lives to give a damn for a moment? You could probably just send an envelope with the star's name on it, and they would get the idea. I do not understand the point of fan mail. If you really want to get a message to someone, make sure that it stands out, without having to resort to copious amounts of glitter glue and heart stickers. Be creative, be unusual, have something different to say. The same goes with life: if you think you're important enough that people should listen to you, put your message across in a way that conveys that! Also, well done to Taylor's management team for recycling, #savetheplanet.

Nepotism in schools: teacher fired for not adjusting principle's child's marks : A Northern Cape teacher was fired after she did not adjust one of her pupils marks so that he could pass. Said pupil was the principle's son. Pregnant mathematics and science teacher, Arlene Nel refused the request to up the grade 11 student's mark for a life sciences paper for which he received 28%. He had also only achieved 14% and 24% for maths and physical sciences respectively. The arbitration case for this situation will continue next month.
We thought we had it bad in our school, where there were relatives all throughout the staff. We had nothing on this. This is so unfair, because of the treatment and preference given to one student (who clearly doesn't deserve a chance - it's not as though he was having a little bit of trouble with one subject, he was failing others as well), and because the teacher now has a newborn child to care for, without a job to support it. Perhaps there are other underlying issues in the pupil's life that has caused him to perform badly, but if this is the case, then it needs to be dealt with openly (with discretion of course), and not through sneakily firing a staff member.

Grahamstown has no water and it really sucks:  I've attached two links for this story, but really it is my own. We have no water here in Grahamstown, and it is the second time in two weeks. Last week this inconvenience lasted about a day. Now, we have had no water for a few days. Certain areas seem to have started to get water back, now that the problem has been "fixed", but many people still have no access to water, which means no washing, no cooking water, no flushing water, in many cases.
A message from "Cllr Les Reynolds Da Caucus Leader" on the Rhodes University Community Forum Facebook group informed members of the group as to the cause of the outages, and explained that once the broken pipe that was the cause of the problems was fixed, water supply should resume.

[Note: this is a Monday post, but written on Wednesday, so the water issues timeline may be somewhat confusing. The events it describes were confusing anyway, so this shouldn't be a problem. Also, any water supply issues is an issue, regardless of how long that has been the case for]