Guatemala, Part Two: New Years Eve

Asa has been very much in the front line throughout our little crisis. That’s partly because he and Tesi are the Spanish speakers in the family, but mainly because he has been acting like a grownup. I think it’s interesting to see what this kind of challenge brings out in people. What do you do with your anxiety? Can you transform it into some kind of useful energy?

In one of Wodehouse’s stories (the only Jeeves and Wooster story in which Jeeves has the narrative voice) Jeeves remarks that Mr. Wooster lacks “the gift of the unusual situation”. There have been moments in my life when I have thought the same about Asa. (There have also been moments when I have thought it about myself.)

Asa showed up well yesterday. He translated, he relayed messages, he searched for the breaker box, he rode along with Tesi when she headed off at dusk in the Jeep with Juan Jose to look for plumbing supplies. (That first time, summoned by his nephew from some party, Juan Jose had come by bus, not by motorbike. More about that scary bumpy dark Jeep ride later.)

But what set the seal upon it for Tesi and me was when Asa was selected to receive the crucial instructions. At the point when the plumber had done all he could in the dark after closing time on a holiday with nothing but hand tools and a piece of plastic pipe and a length of rope, J. B. stood in front of us all, hesitating, saying “I need to choose someone …” and picked The Young Man. Suddenly at that moment, viewed against the backdrop of a strange place and an unusual challenge, our child looked like an adult to us.

After that, Amadi, Gerry, and Tesi went to bed one by one but Asa and I stayed up. He checked on the pump from time to time. We climbed to the roof at quarter to midnight, when it was getting really loud. There were firework displays in every direction: in the center of town, in a neighbor’s yard two doors away, on a distant ridge line, everywhere — not to mention marvelous flying lanterns, small translucent glowing hot air balloons launched into the night sky one after another.

When we came back down, Asa checked on the pump again. This area was his responsibility; I was merely an observer. There was a funny moment, though, when he seemed to want my help for the trip to the breaker box to shut off the system for the night. He was just a little tiny bit afraid. ("Because electricity" was how he put it.)

Oh, and I should mention the other way that Asa was in the front line yesterday. You may be wondering why, when the firefighters had filled our cistern, that was not the end of the story. Well, the head firefighter Miguel was being thorough, and before putting hose to cistern he wanted to get a good look at the house’s water supply system. He found the covered nook in the front garden where the water, having made its way through a series of buried tanks, is pumped into a pressure tank. While contemplating it he gave what should have been a harmless gentle nudge to a PVC pipe. What happened next happened very fast: a related pipe suddenly sprang a leak and sprayed a good deal of hot water straight into Asa’s face and chest at high velocity.

Our understanding is that when (a) there was no more water coming to the pump and (b) a relay that should have shut off the pump failed, then (c) the pump, running dry, overheated, to the extent that the pipes leading to it were handling much more pressure than usual, not to mention heat. In that moment, the very surprised Asa said a word that I have rarely heard him say. We thought of keeping the bit of burst pipe as a souvenir, but I think in the end we left it at the house for the amusement of our landlord.

Tesi and I have been saying for years that we have terrible plumbing karma. This is not the time to tell all the old stories, but we have had the strangest leaks and disasters over the years. It's pretty clear that we brought our bad luck with us to Antigua. I couldn't help wondering whether it would follow us on our side trip to Pana.