Water-wars and worldviews

Some call it a "curse", others say it's just "bad luck". We prefer to see it as an "opportunity", to have a chuckle and also learn something about the way in which Cambodians think.

Ever since we arrived at #22b, Street 185 we have been doing battle with one of the earth's elements. We've had no problems with fire, no issues with dirt and everything's OK with the wind.

No, our nemesis is water.

It first reared its head on our very first night in the house, when a buildup of pressure caused one of the hoses in the bathroom (yes, the ones used for spraying your backside) to explode...at 4 o'clock in the morning! I would describe it as a huge waterfall bounding over the cliff of our toilet.

The next two incidents both involved water finding its way into our house from the outside. On each occassion, we either returned home or woke up to find our entire ground floor covered in water, although not as covered as it would have been where it not for the fact that waters escapes through the gaps between our apartment and that of our neighbour's below. Suffice to say, they were not impressed.

The latest incident is proof, if any was needed, that like in the movie "Final Destination", water does indeed have a mind of its own. As if sensing some imminent danger, a few weeks ago we went away leaving two 18-year old boys in the house to face whatever our nemesis could throw at us. This is what happened...

Where there's a crack...

The first bang on the door came around 8 o'clock in the morning. Our next door neighbours (pleasent Korean missionaries) calmly explained to the two boys that water had been leaking through our walls, into their house, down their stairways and towards the electric sockets on their walls. Out of politeness, they had decided to wait until the morning to tell them!

It transpired later that our landlord had failed to fix a dodgy pipe in the wall, which had decided to burst while the boys were using the shower. In an effort to resolve the situation while we were away, our neighbour's landlord helped the boys switch our water supply from the mains (which has pressure) to the water tank on the roof (which does not).

This lead to the second bang on the door, which came around midnight the following evening. A rather irrate neighbour from two doors down began complaning loudly (in Khmer) about being disturbed by the noise of water overflowing from our watertank, spilling onto our roof, then down onto the roof of our neighbours below and out onto the street, which was beginning to look quite flooded. We'd been foiled again!

The worldview in action

When we returned to try and resolve the situation, we were faced with an unsuprisingly typical response from our landlord: "It's not my fault."

As with the other water incidents, where the landlord insisted we had somehow damaged the bathroom hose by using it (!?!) and neglected to clean the balcony, causing the flooding of our house, he was insistent it was neither his fault nor his responsibility.

With the help of Sophaul, our friend who is also the landlord next door, we tried to explain to our landlord what had happened regarding the dodgy pipe, even taking him next door to examine the evidence - proof that the leak was coming from our side and was, hence, his responsibility.

It was at this point when our landlord walked away, refusing to even examine the evidence presented to him. It was also at this point when I realised how much our landlords' actions were the result of his worldview - his basic beliefs about the world.

Most Cambodians believe that they are, ultimately, at the mercy of unpredictable spirits - either those of their ancestors or the spirits that are part of the Buddhist belief. When things go wrong or bad stuff happens, it is seen as someone's "fate" and has happened because the spirits have been angered in some way. It is pointless to try and learn a lesson from this and prevent the same thing from happening again (i.e. fix the dang pipe!) because it will only happen again - the spirits will do what they like.

In the end, we suceeded in reducing the water pressure to a point where it does not leak through our neighbour's wall, a tactic which will no doubt have to be revised in the future. The consequences of our landlord's worldview may not have been drastic for us (it's only water, after all), but this way of seeing the world can have more serious consequences for the nation as a whole.

Education can be seen as optional, because real power comes not from knowledge but from appeasing and controlling the spirits; Traffic accident victims are sometimes left dying by the side of the road with bystanders too scared to touch the body for fear that the dead person's spirit may have been released into the world; People living with HIV/AIDS hear that the disease is their 'fate' and they should not fight it by taking anti-viral medication.

By living in Cambodia, we are learning that, in many ways, ideas have consequences. What you believe really does matter, and affects actions as small as fixing a dodgy pipe or as big as help someone in desperate need.

But even in the differing responses from our landlord and the landlord next door, there is a glimmer of hope, a reminder that what a nation believes about the world can change, and it can affect something as small as a broken water pipe.