Flooding
on Mary In Cambodia (Cambodia), 22/Oct/2011 07:36, 34 days ago
   Flooding.Last year we had serious floods in Banteay Meanchey and I wrote about them from the comfort of my guesthouse room. This year the floods have come again and I’m recording the fact, not from a distance but surrounded on all sides by a foot of brown muddy water.My house is near the river and for weeks now I have anxiously watched the level rising. It inched its way up nearer and nearer to my gate. Last week the older houses on both sides flooded. I began to raise my possessions off the ground as a precaution, but not really believing the water would come in, a little bit like King Kanute I suppose I was telling it to stay away! A 3 hour downpour on Sunday morning 9th. October sent water flowing in my door and me scurrying to the upstairs' apartment'. Another unmerciful 2 hour thunder storm on Monday morning raised the level to knee high in my living room. As I write there’s a long-boat moored at my gate, Children are swimming in the garden next door, a couple of families are washing the kids’ hair, a baby is being bathed, pots and pans are being washed, all in brown muddy flood water.I guess I know how Noah must have felt, I wonder if he really invited the animals in or did they just arrive? Here in my ark they don’t need an invitation. Apart from the ghekkoes who are always with us, I now have bats, butterflies, mosquitoes, cockroaches and huge spiders as regular house guests. There’s no point in fighting them or spraying with chemical, they seem immune to it, so I tuck my mosquito net well in around me and so far only one cockroach got through .Something helped itself to half a banana one night,it may have been brown and furry with a long tail, I've locked up all my food since.Next week is the water festival. It is the time of year when the rains should have stopped and the floods receded enough for the river to change course and flow south again. It's not looking promising so far.