Here comes the rain....
on Wonderous Wanderland (Burkina Faso), 19/Jun/2011 18:17, 34 days ago
Finally and very slowly the wet season is starting. Once or twice a week now we have quite a bit of rain coming down, accompanied by lots of thunder and lightning and a heavy wind tearing at the roofs of our houses. As most houses here have corrugated roofs the noise is ABSOLUTELY incredible and deafening. During a storm it is impossible to sleep, listen to music or watch a dvd, or even to have a decent conversation with anyone without having to shout the message directly into that person’s ear - as we experienced during a diner party at Alison& Martin’s last saturday. Luckily these storms never last very long - one or two hours at the most - but during that short space of time there’s so much water falling down that the soil cannot absorb all of it. My ‘street’ - which is hardly more than a dirt road - literally turns into a very muddy streaming river, and because there’s a big hole in the ground right in front of my house, there’s even a real little waterfall. I made a video of it one morning earlier this week. It is not very good quality but at least it gives somewhat of an idea of what it looks like. [Upcoming when I have a faster internet connection]That particular morning I had to wade my way through it to the other side of the street to go to work, as my house was standing on a little island completely surrounded by water. I was wearing my hiking boots to keep my feet dry, but most people were just walking through it on their flip-flops or even bare feet. It really struck me then that, although I had not slept very well because of the rain loudly hitting the roof of my 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom (though small ones) house - or shall I call it a mansion? - with huge living room and covered paved terrace/courtyard outside (O poor me, eh....?!!), at least I had that roof to protect me and goretex boots and jacket to keep me dry, and that I had VSO looking into filling up that hole in my street - because I had talked to them about it just the day before - etcetera etcetera. But everywhere around me I saw people crawling out from underneath tiny self-constructed wooden or straw shelters - the ones that hadn’t been blown away by the storm - others were trying to get the water out of muddy courtyards and houses (sometimes by the bucket), or coming down from soaked benches and tables used to sell stuff in the street. And I noticed that there were a lot of streets with holes, in fact most of them have,and big puddles of water everywhere, but unfortunately no white people living in those streets demanding the holes to be filled up so next time it wouldn’t be that bad.... *sigh*there's so much work still in this country....The man who’s selling coffee and cigarettes in the morning on the corner opposite my house had seen me filming and warned me that this is just the beginning and that it’s only gonna get worse over the next few months. He asked me to send my video to“notre patron” - the president - and to tell him to come down here, get his feet wet and to fix his country! Wonder if he's reading my blog.....