Our sewer is at it again. One big mess, and the exit pipe completely broken. Before you say: “Yuck”, we noticed the problem before the toilets stopped working. (Luckily!)

A few months ago, we had a problem that our sewer was clogged up, and it was clogged up pretty badly. They used (like usual) high pressure to remove the obstruction, but since then, the ground on the outside of our sewer pit started to sink slowly…

We didn’t notice this until a few weeks ago, when the Esso came here to fill up our Diesel tank for the heater. (We heat our house and the water on Diesel.) Since the Diesel tanker uses a hose of more than 30 meters which goes all the way to the back of our house from the street, we need to walk over that same spot that the sewer pit is at… and guess what? That is when I noticed the ground started to cave in. I took a step and I was standing up to my knees in the ground. (They joked about that, because they said I was simply too heavy) but I thought to myself, this can’t be good.

Last Saturday I was taking my usual shower and I noticed that the toilet was making a funny bubbling sound. Now I knew that the air coming from the toilet was coming straight out of the sewer, making place for the water I was putting in. So I asked Tatiana (my wife) to check with the water company (Aguadecima) to let them do the usual unclogging.

Today we called them, and they came. My suspicion was right. The sewer pit was almost filled up to the top, the pipe to the street is broken and they will replace it this week. That’s going to be some digging, but at least we have some space in the pit that can be filled now, because they were able to once-again remove some obstruction that was causing this mess.

And the nicest part? All of this is done for free! They react quick, and don’t charge a dime. If the problem lies between the pit and the house, it’s our problem. From the pit to the street, including the pit itself, is the problem of the county. This is needless to say, they respond quickly. Once they start digging, I’ll shoot some pictures :)

My passport is due to expire in March 2003, but knowing that they are going to change the proceedings for passports in Europe, I’m going to change mine a bit ahead of schedule.

My brother alerted me on this and he told me that they are about to change the rules soon. I asked the consul here and guess what? I have 2 weeks to arrange it here, after that I have to go to Santiago to arrange my passport.

Santiago is about 850 kilometers from here, which means: a 2-day trip at the least.

To my brother: A BIG THANKS for alerting me! I’ll be arranging this A.S.A.P.