Construction or Destruction?

A couple of days after I moved into my new house I noticed a pool of water outside my kitchen window. As I had just done some washing up I wondered if there was a problem with a blocked drain. Over the next few days I realised that the pool was rapidly becoming a small lake and that the water seemed to be running out from under the house. I decided it was more likely to be a burst pipe and so the Chadian builder used for such problems was called in. When I got back from work on Thursday this was the sight that greeted me:

Those of you who know Africa will notice the multi-purpose red and yellow
Nido (powdered milk) tin, in this instance used to scoop the water from the hole!

For reasons I do not fully understand (because of my lack of understanding of both plumbing and French) repairing the burst pipe outside also involved replacing the pipes to the kitchen sink. So there were two men in the kitchen taking it in turns to use a screwdriver as a chisel in an attempt to break up the concrete wall and remove the pipes and taps. When they left on Thursday evening this was what my kitchen sink looked like:

I was told the workmen would be back on Friday. When the boss came to the office with the invoice for the work I foolishly assumed that the work was finished and I would be returning home that afternoon to a newly repaired, fully functioning kitchen. Unfortunately that was not the case. Both the hole in the ground and the hole in the wall remain but I at least have water in the kitchen now, through a brand new tap and pipe system.

I asked the compound guard when he thought the workmen would be back and he replied 'Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, Inshallah (God willing)'. I hope so...