I grabbed a Coleman pot and walked over to the edge where the drain pipe led down from the building. I tried to place the plastic cups that were stored inside the pot into the hole of the drain pipe, but could tell that it would probably, even though quite snug, slide down the pipe. This might be good because it would get caught at the bottom twist, but I don't know if it would be a perfect seal, and I would potentially lose my water slowly. I tried the pot itself, but again it was almost perfect, but then I'd be without a way to heat my water, and cold meals would suck. When I placed the lid over the pipe, the edge aligned perfectly with the drain pipe, but I had a feeling that though fitting snugly, I wouldn't get a perfect seal either. I also noticed that there were screws in the gutter attaching it to the metal frame that jutted out of the building to give it strength, and these probably would leak as well, making this idea almost not functional. It's quite sad that that idea wouldn't work, considering 20 feet times about 4 inches wide and 5 inches deep, that would equal around 240 inches by 4 inches by 5 inches, which converts to about 4800 cubic inches. Remembering that 1 gallon is approximately 250 cubic inches, I quickly calculated that 4800 cubic inches would be roughly 20 gallons of water.

  The average person needs around 1 gallon of water per day when they are quite active, so theoretically, that amount of water could keep me going for about 20 days if I could collect it. But with these leaks, I’d be lucky if I got the gutter to stay full for half a day. I needed a more reliable solution.

  I was thinking if I only had a tube of silicone and a hard rain, I wouldn't have to worry about water. It made me think about what else I had in my bag and remembered a candle, a citronella candle that I had in the backpack for keeping mosquitoes away. Maybe I could use that and somehow melt hot wax over an area I thought might leak. I went over and grabbed the candle from the bottom of one of the pockets and a lighter and headed over to MacGyver the lid in place with a good seal. After many failed attempts, I found that the best way was to drip hot wax over the screw holes, which seemed to instantly harden and make a perfect seal. However, when I tried to do the same with the lid, it did not make a seal no matter how much wax I put on it until I had an inspiration. With most of the candle melted, I put it out and heated the lid up underneath the stove until all the edges were hot enough to melt wax, and then pushed it down. The wax around the lid melted, evened out, and solidified to make what I thought was almost a perfect seal. I lit the candle and dripped more around all the edges of the top of the lid as well after it had cooled. I was pretty proud of myself. The clouds looked like they would rain any minute, and I could see lightning in the distance as night started to settle in.

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  I sat on the edge of the roof, staring to the west where the cloud system was roiling with lightning and the distant sounds of thunder. Knowing that the difference between a lightning strike and the time you hear the thunder in seconds would approximate distance to about one kilometer per second, I gauged the cloud system as it moved in. I could see rain falling, but it never got closer than three seconds to me. I stayed up late, hoping, praying to every god and piece of karma I had. I was thirsty, my lips were starting to get dry, and the skin on the back of my hands looked weird when I examined it. I knew you could live three days without water, but that's when you start off fresh, and I was not fresh at all. Disappointed, I walked to my backpack and put down the things I had collected for rain: the used meal packages, my two cups and boiling pot, the Ziploc bag, the CamelBak, and the 20-liter dry pack that I had stored all the food in.

  That night was a horrible sleep, as you can imagine. The wind was blowing my A-frame tent and making a ruckus. I was also on a knife's edge, ready to spring up if the rain did start. I would hear a few errant raindrops hit the tarp, and I'd get all ready only to realize that it was just a few drops coming down, nothing that I could collect other than opening my mouth with my tongue out. I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, feeling like the rains were always in Africa. I woke up later to a shock.