The UN leaks

For those who consider the UN the last bastion of all that is good and right in the world, I am here to burst your bubble . . . or perhaps your water pipe.  The place leaks.  I know this because I have experienced firsthand said leakage. 

I was sitting with my student and we were wading through “use ‘a’ when the word starts with a consonant and ‘an’ when the word starts with a vowel.  ‘E’ consonant or vowel?” when a huge rain storm hit.  There wasn’t so much thunder and lightning as rain, rain and buckets more rain.

Here I am reminded of the boiling frog – a frog will leap out of boiling water but slowly turn up the heat and they become acclimatised and so boil to death; an icky analogy and perhaps a little too graphic to accompany my tale of woe. 

Still, for reasons that will remain unrevealed (though I’m sure there are those of you who will put their own spin on the facts), my feet were mere inches from the floor.  It wasn’t until I stood to write something on the board that I felt the wetness.  I can’t say any plausible explanation immediately sprang to mind.  I looked down.  There was a puddle spreading across the floor; up to half an inch in places and basically surrounding my chair and barring our exit.  The thing that really fazed me was the lack of a discernible leak.  The water wasn’t coming from the ceiling; it didn’t appear to be oozing under the door; nor did it seem to seep through the walls.  There was surely leakage.  My sodden sandals were testament to it.  Seemed so damned typical of the UN; no discernible rhyme nor reason to what is happening, but certainly a puddle of something unpleasant to navigate across.

The rain continued to fall and before leaving I put on my wet weather gear.  It wasn’t heavy rain but there was enough of it to wet me through by the time I’d ridden halfway home.  When I go to the gate I was greeted by another phenomenon.  In the space of my two hour class, someone had dug a moat around the barracks.  Oh you think I jest and if only I had thought to take my camera I could have furnished evidence of the steam of water that was gushing through said moat.  Alas, you’ll have to take my word for it. 

I stood at the side of the road staring no doubt quite pathetically at the other side of the road where my bike stood warm and dry in the undercover motorcycle parking area.  I wondered if there were shallowed parts that I could somehow tiptoe through; if there were they were not so easily spotted.  Two men stood beside me.  They looked grumpy decked out as they were in jeans, socks and running shoes.  They must have heard the saying, “If looks could kill” and were hoping that if looks could kill perhaps they might also make the waters recede, or at least part ala Moses and the Red Sea.  Alas, the Cathedral is a good few blocks away and clearly Christ was not venturing from the good drainage he enjoys up on Christo Rei.  On the other hand, their abject displeasure somehow amused me.  This made me smile and them scowl even more.  If looks could kill . . . so I took my chances with the torrent; my sandals got saturated but I made it to the other side.

I don’t know what happened to them.  When I looked again they were gone.  Could be they slunk back inside the compound; could be the waters took their revenge for the snarly looks and whisked the two gents seaward.