Some medicine makes all the difference. I feel much better.

We moved into this place some fourteen months ago. At that time I went around town and set up all the utilities as required. The following October I received a water bill with no money owed. I didn't receive anything more. I tried calling the water department but couldn't get past the automated phone system. When we got home from The Big Trip there was still no water bill in the pile of mail waiting for me. I finally managed to talk to someone in the water department and she promised to send out our bill. She said something ominous then. She commented that it looked as though we might have a leak in our line.

I got the bill last Saturday. According to the Guam Water Authority (GWA) we have used 348,640 gallons in 438 days or 795 gallons a day. This in a house with no washing machine or dishwasher and only two adults living in it. The bill is for $1,660.22.

Yesterday I went down to GWA to dispute the bill. I asked for a readout of all the meter readings since I'd set up the account. It turns out the only reading they ever did was on October 28, 2005, a few days after I called them!

So, now I have a new fight on my hands. Gordon is angry too. The meter is a long way from the house, down by the road with two houses between ours and the meter. There could be a leak anywhere in the line that runs through the brush. He asked them two years ago to move the meter closer to the house and had no response. This is a common occurrence with GWA. It is estimated that 40% of the water they pump into their system disappears back into the ground through leaks in the pipelines. The infrastructure on the island is a joke. The bureaucracy can't stir itself to do anything about it. It is so frustrating. I'd get angry about it but that does no good. I know that things are the same wherever I could go, except for Japan.