The last straw

The phrase in English is "The straw that broke the camel's back", but for this story the Italian version seems more appropriate: "The drop that made the cup overflow."
After a very dry cold season, the water supply in Mae Sot at the moment is not good, with very low mains pressure and sporadic cuts in supply. Many households overcome this problem by having a large reserve tank and pump, which means they have water available even when the pressure is low.
The landlady who owns my house owns another five houses on the same street, and is also constructing a huge new block of apartments, several of which are already occupied. At the moment we are all sharing a single tank which, needless to say, is woefully inadequate for so many households. As a result, for the last couple of months the water supply has been completely erratic and unpredictable. The people in the house where the tank is located have been trying to manage the situation by keeping the pump switched off for most of the day so the tank is not completely drained, and only turning it on for an hour or so in the morning and evening. However, as all our hours and schedules do not coincide, this is a far from satisfactory solution.
Some of the tenants are Burmese, and do not seem inclined to complain about the situation. However, both I and a Spanish chap who lives down the road have been becoming increasingly irate and have complained several times to the landlady. At my last complaint, she assured me the problem would be resolved by the end of March. However, as she repeated this promise on 30th, I took it with a large dose of salt.
I left for my trip to Bangkok on 31st, and have enjoyed a week staying in hotels with reliable showers - bliss! I returned today - an eight hour bus trip at the end of which I was sticky, sweaty and grimy and feeling in need of a shower. (We are at the height of the hot season now.) So you can imagine my sheer exasperation when I got home to discover - NO WATER.
Before I continue, I should say that I realise that in many of the countries where VSO volunteers work, a regular water supply is a luxury only to be imagined, and bucket showers are the norm. However, what frustrates me is that this situation is down to the landlady being unwilling to provide an adequate system for her many properties. The frustration is compounded on days when I am without water to flush my toilet, and the man across the road (with his own reserve tank) is merrily hosing down his gleaming SUV.
So this evening, after screaming and banging my fists on the kitchen table, I contacted the young lady who acts as go-between and translator with the landlady. (She is the same young lady that I sometimes do language exchange with.) She duly contacted the landlady, who turned up almost immediately and "resolved" the problem by telling the people with the tank to turn the pump back on. She then came over to my house, all smug smiles and said "You've got water again now!" But I knew full well that within half an hour at the most the water would all be gone.
In Thailand, you are not supposed to show if you are upset or angry, but I'm afraid I threw all my cultural sensitivities out of the window and let rip all my anger and frustration. "So there's water now - but what about in an hour, or tomorrow, or the next day?!" I was close to tears, and I knew that in her eyes I was making a terrible spectacle of myself, but I just couldn't help it. It seemed to have some effect though, as she took me to the construction site to show me the huge, concrete-lined hole in the ground which is to become the new reserve tank. It will, supposedly, be ready in a week - so maybe by the end of the month....
By the time I had been down to the corner shop to get my drinking water and stopped off to talk for five minutes to the girl in the house with the tank, the water supply had drained, so I never got my shower. I have just had a bucket shower, feeling like a real VSO volunteer, and hoping the water might come back on again in the morning.