Well, we flooded our building. The entire building. As per Cairo life, our water was out Thursday morning, so no showers for us! No biggie. Until I got a call from my landlord at about 10:30 saying we had left a faucet on and flooded the building. I had no idea what to expect. Like, had the water seeped down the walls and ruined the walls in all the flats below us? Those kind of repairs, while cheaper in Cairo than America, made my stomach ache!
After the 30 minute bus ride to the flat, we opened the front door to the building and I saw water on the ground floor headed our way. That's when I started crying. It was horrifying. We ran the key up to the boab (well, Dalia ran; I hobbled), with water flowing down as we went up. In the floor right beneath mine, there was a woman yelling at me in Arabic, interspersed with English phrases like, "Get out!" "You leave!" Dalia and the owner told me not to worry or listen to her, she's just a crazy old lady, but I just laughed. I was very much aware that it was the first instance of someone being hateful to me here in Egypt and I also couldn't help but think that if this was the U.S., there would also be a crazy old lady screaming obsenities at me. Some things are universal and mean old ladies seem to be one of them!
When we looked into the apartment, the entire floor was covered in about an inch and a half of water! The boab and his wife used squeegies to get the water to the drain in the bathroom. They wouldn't let me help because of my knee. I got to hang out with their adorable toddler-aged daughter and hold their itty bitty baby daughter while they worked. I will be paying them 150 pounds on Sunday after I visit the bank. That equates to $25 American. Not bad considering they worked about 4 hours in the flat cleaning up everything AND there were no other damages to pay. They also mopped out the crazy lady's front hallway (That's why she was so mad at me. Some of the water had gotten into her flat through her front door.)
Very glad that is all over and very glad it wasn't worse. Hamduhlah (My best phonetic interpretation of the Arabic phrase "Praise God").
My boab's daughter drew some pictures for me as the water dried! She just found my bracelet:
The water was just about gone at this point. Notice she is trying on my bracelet. So cute:
I still can't believe the water flowed down all of these steps:
After the 30 minute bus ride to the flat, we opened the front door to the building and I saw water on the ground floor headed our way. That's when I started crying. It was horrifying. We ran the key up to the boab (well, Dalia ran; I hobbled), with water flowing down as we went up. In the floor right beneath mine, there was a woman yelling at me in Arabic, interspersed with English phrases like, "Get out!" "You leave!" Dalia and the owner told me not to worry or listen to her, she's just a crazy old lady, but I just laughed. I was very much aware that it was the first instance of someone being hateful to me here in Egypt and I also couldn't help but think that if this was the U.S., there would also be a crazy old lady screaming obsenities at me. Some things are universal and mean old ladies seem to be one of them!
When we looked into the apartment, the entire floor was covered in about an inch and a half of water! The boab and his wife used squeegies to get the water to the drain in the bathroom. They wouldn't let me help because of my knee. I got to hang out with their adorable toddler-aged daughter and hold their itty bitty baby daughter while they worked. I will be paying them 150 pounds on Sunday after I visit the bank. That equates to $25 American. Not bad considering they worked about 4 hours in the flat cleaning up everything AND there were no other damages to pay. They also mopped out the crazy lady's front hallway (That's why she was so mad at me. Some of the water had gotten into her flat through her front door.)
Very glad that is all over and very glad it wasn't worse. Hamduhlah (My best phonetic interpretation of the Arabic phrase "Praise God").
My boab's daughter drew some pictures for me as the water dried! She just found my bracelet:
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