Incident Report: House 1743, Area 18B, Lilongwe
on Me Talk Pretty One Day (Malawi), 19/Mar/2009 08:07, 34 days ago
On Wednesday 21st January, 2009—a day which saw an unusual amount of rainfall in Lilongwe—I returned home from work early in the evening to find that the gate to my house was completely immovable. The gate sits on two wheels which normally run along a metal rail set into the ground. All I could see, however, was a mass of debris protruding from beneath the gate and blocking those wheels. Stones and pieces of brick; twigs, branches and maize plants; glass bottles and garbage of all description; mangos, avocados and even lemons all conspired to bar my entry.I found a safe place to park the Toyota and while the rain continued to fall, I forced open the door set into the gate to view the blockage from the other side. The situation was worse than I first thought; the debris was piled high and the list of items seemingly washed into the gate grew to include a large metal oil drum, a spice rack and a single flip-flop, though I’m not sure ‘flip-flop’ is the correct term for the singular and try as I might, I could not locate its partner—the first victim.The garden too was covered with a fair amount of waste and refuse, including a door, and no shortage of bricks I noticed. On further inspection the source of those bricks became clear. Looking beyond my house and garden I could see another house and another garden, when previously the only thing this view afforded was that of a large brick wall. The wall was gone, washed away by some tremendous force which carried some of its bricks nearly a hundred feet beyond the house and into the road out front. Large chunks of wall lay disconsolately amongst the remains of the maize crop which itself had been laid low.Now I cannot say for sure, but it seems that the once proud 8-foot wall had held back a large volume of water during the heavy rains, and that it was this large volume of water which eventually caused it to fall. The maize that had been growing in the garden was flattened towards the house as if reverently bowing to the surviving structure. Even in areas seemingly free of bricks and debris, the plants were flattened, though it is also true to say that many escaped their rootings and received an even worse fate.Unfortunately, though I hoped the motorbike, which had been safely parked beneath the avocado tree, would be spared the destruction and devastation that befell the maize, it was not to be. The bike was lying on its side some distance from where it had previously stood, garbage entangled within the spokes of its wheels. Attempts to start the bike produced nothing more than a worrying gurgling sound emanating from the engine. Evidently, the bike had drowned.On entering the house itself—a house which is raised several feet above the level of the ground—I was greeted by a modest amount of flooding, further evidence in support of the theory that the collapsing wall had released a substantial and devastating wave of water… a tsunami some might say. A trail of water and mud shows that the entry point was the back door. The muddy water then flowed through the kitchen and into both the living room and the dining room which is currently home to four young chicks. The discovery that the chickens had survived the devastation and were happily going about their business amongst the wreckage provided a brief moment of relief and joy. Four days on from this disaster and I have still not seen any of the rats that once inhabited the small rubbish dump at the back of the garden. I am beginning to fear the worst.