It takes a village...

And, in this case, a plumber.

I walked into my office this morning to find water raining down from my ceiling, presumably from the flat upstairs.

A chair was soaked, and a carpet was serving as a sponge.

I moved the rest of the furniture out of the way. And started putting containers out on the floor – a bowl here, a pot, and a trash can there. I laughed at myself because I knew they wouldn’t make a difference.

Realizing no one was home upstairs; I phoned a plumber. He couldn’t come. “Oh well,” I thought, “let’s see how we might get this fixed.”

Then I remembered that my upstairs neighbor’s sister works in the bar in town. I walked into town, found her, explained the situation, and asked if she could call her brother to see if he could return home. She smiled and said, “Of course!”

On the way back, I ran into a friend. He asked, “Did you call a plumber?” I said I did, but he couldn’t come. He smiled and said, “I’ll ring him again, and if he still can’t come, I’ll ring another.”

I thanked him, returned to my office, and unsuccessfully tried to dry the floor.

Two minutes later, a town truck pulled up. Two men hopped out and quickly opened a hatch outside my building.

They said the neighbor’s sister had told them about the problem, so they’d come around to turn off the water to the flat upstairs.

And, just like that, the rain in my office stopped!

Ten minutes later, my upstairs neighbor arrived home just as a plumber arrived – and not the one I had initially called. (Thank you, friend!)

Within 15 minutes, the leak upstairs was repaired.

And my neighbor and his wife came downstairs with towels and a mop to help me to clean up the water that had accumulated and carry the wet things outside to dry in the sun.

It’s true what they say, “It takes a village.” Or, as in my case, a Provençale village.

Even though my French is not perfect – a leaky pipe got fixed within an hour because everyone stepped in with kindness.