Rain, rain go away!
I want to forewarn you that the information you are about to read may appear to be false and nothing more than the mad ranting of naïve Americans in Mozambique. However I will wholeheartedly assure you that although this summary appears to be full of gross exaggerations and inaccurate information the following is in fact the truth. Hopefully the few photos at the end will shed credibility on my report. (Had trouble posting these! Stay tuned for pictures in a few days! Hopefully!)
Let me begin by saying that it is a well-known fact that when people use the phrase “Africa hot” it signifies a heat that is beyond compare. Temperatures that far surpass normal, ranging well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. What is not usually associated with the saying “Africa hot” is the rain, which this extreme heat ushers in. On Friday we officially observed the power of “Africa hot” as a precursor to torrential rain. For the past two days the heat had steadily climbed to temperatures around 107 degrees. We Americans have sweated, complained and marveled at the effects of such heat. Our house although constructed mainly of cement of course has no central AC and therefore heats up and stays hot 24 hours a day. In such heat there is no “cool breeze” in the evening or refreshing morning wind to start a new day. It’s just hot – sticky, sweaty, stifling hot! Although we are SO grateful to have a few “room” AC units.
The day started out like many others – stifling hot, but overcast. I noticed it was still; quiet; no birds chirping, no breeze blowing, no people hustling about. I wondered if it was going to rain. By the time Lucy left at 7 am it changed from silence outside to the plink, plunk sound of rain. Within the next 15 minutes the sound grew in volume and the rain began sneaking into our house via the 5 panes of glass that make up our skylight. Last time it rained hard it was during the night and by the morning we had accumulated about 2 inches of water on the floor of our sun porch/TV room. Luckily last week we had hired a guy to come a fix the ceiling of that room so it remained relatively dry through this storm. When we left the house about quarter past 7 most of the pot holes had already been filled with water making the local roads appear in fine shape. This is a dangerous problem when you’re not familiar with a road because the size of many of the potholes in town can do serious axel damage to your car if you hit them at speeds above 30 mph. I dropped Steve at the office and went to Game (our version of Walmart) to buy a few umbrellas since all of ours had found little legs and run away from our house to our employee’s homes. I kid you not that the city was so abandoned that Mia and I parked in THE best parking spot in the lot, closest to the entrance and sprinted to the door. When we got inside we were soaked to the bone in just 2 minutes (if it even took that long). For the next 3 hours it rained so hard that you cannot believe it. Rain here is not accompanied by severe thunder and lightning like in the states, it just rains. Huge raindrops falling all over the ground and filling the pothole-ridden streets like small rivers. Every intersection was like crossing a class five rapid, with water coming from both sides of the street and all of the garbage and debris passing by.
The road to Kaleb’s school is all down hill and therefore the washout and mud follows you every inch of the way. On this particular road is one of the garbage dumps just 10 feet or so from the road, but today it was the road. A complete washout had caused the road to be covered in garbage and mud. I watched as the “hill” of garbage (which is overgrown by weeds and small shrubs) literally collapsed and flowed like a river onto the road. We are so thankful that we have a 4x4 for days like today! There are sections of town that take on so much water that a rain like this raises 1 meter of standing water on the roads. Too make things worse the city is not prepared to handle the fall out of a storm like this (although it’s a regular occurrence during the rainy season). There are no backhoes to dig out the roads. There are no tow trucks to relieve the stuck cars. The clean up crews, that will move meter upon meter of dirt, are armed with dustpans, brooms and a few shovels. We kid you not! So the city workers work and work for days on end to get all of the dirt put back on the side of the road, until the next rain storm comes and they start the job all over again.
All around town piles of mud and debris or cars and trucks that had gotten stuck in the muck blocked off roads. The water was so high on the roads that it covered the wheel wells of smaller sedan cars. Mounds of dirt from a new building development washed away exposing all of the newly laid water and sewage pipes. Potholes that were large before became gigantic from the pounding rivers of rain and the unsuspecting cars that barreled unknowingly into them. There were very few locals walking through town and those that did brave the weather were completely soaked to the skin. It was an incredible sight and 3 days later we are still witnessing the aftermath effects of the storm.
We were optimistic that the rain would cool the temperature down, but so far no luck. So we’ll suffer the heat and wait until it builds to a point that the rain comes tumbling down again.
Let me begin by saying that it is a well-known fact that when people use the phrase “Africa hot” it signifies a heat that is beyond compare. Temperatures that far surpass normal, ranging well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. What is not usually associated with the saying “Africa hot” is the rain, which this extreme heat ushers in. On Friday we officially observed the power of “Africa hot” as a precursor to torrential rain. For the past two days the heat had steadily climbed to temperatures around 107 degrees. We Americans have sweated, complained and marveled at the effects of such heat. Our house although constructed mainly of cement of course has no central AC and therefore heats up and stays hot 24 hours a day. In such heat there is no “cool breeze” in the evening or refreshing morning wind to start a new day. It’s just hot – sticky, sweaty, stifling hot! Although we are SO grateful to have a few “room” AC units.
The day started out like many others – stifling hot, but overcast. I noticed it was still; quiet; no birds chirping, no breeze blowing, no people hustling about. I wondered if it was going to rain. By the time Lucy left at 7 am it changed from silence outside to the plink, plunk sound of rain. Within the next 15 minutes the sound grew in volume and the rain began sneaking into our house via the 5 panes of glass that make up our skylight. Last time it rained hard it was during the night and by the morning we had accumulated about 2 inches of water on the floor of our sun porch/TV room. Luckily last week we had hired a guy to come a fix the ceiling of that room so it remained relatively dry through this storm. When we left the house about quarter past 7 most of the pot holes had already been filled with water making the local roads appear in fine shape. This is a dangerous problem when you’re not familiar with a road because the size of many of the potholes in town can do serious axel damage to your car if you hit them at speeds above 30 mph. I dropped Steve at the office and went to Game (our version of Walmart) to buy a few umbrellas since all of ours had found little legs and run away from our house to our employee’s homes. I kid you not that the city was so abandoned that Mia and I parked in THE best parking spot in the lot, closest to the entrance and sprinted to the door. When we got inside we were soaked to the bone in just 2 minutes (if it even took that long). For the next 3 hours it rained so hard that you cannot believe it. Rain here is not accompanied by severe thunder and lightning like in the states, it just rains. Huge raindrops falling all over the ground and filling the pothole-ridden streets like small rivers. Every intersection was like crossing a class five rapid, with water coming from both sides of the street and all of the garbage and debris passing by.
The road to Kaleb’s school is all down hill and therefore the washout and mud follows you every inch of the way. On this particular road is one of the garbage dumps just 10 feet or so from the road, but today it was the road. A complete washout had caused the road to be covered in garbage and mud. I watched as the “hill” of garbage (which is overgrown by weeds and small shrubs) literally collapsed and flowed like a river onto the road. We are so thankful that we have a 4x4 for days like today! There are sections of town that take on so much water that a rain like this raises 1 meter of standing water on the roads. Too make things worse the city is not prepared to handle the fall out of a storm like this (although it’s a regular occurrence during the rainy season). There are no backhoes to dig out the roads. There are no tow trucks to relieve the stuck cars. The clean up crews, that will move meter upon meter of dirt, are armed with dustpans, brooms and a few shovels. We kid you not! So the city workers work and work for days on end to get all of the dirt put back on the side of the road, until the next rain storm comes and they start the job all over again.
All around town piles of mud and debris or cars and trucks that had gotten stuck in the muck blocked off roads. The water was so high on the roads that it covered the wheel wells of smaller sedan cars. Mounds of dirt from a new building development washed away exposing all of the newly laid water and sewage pipes. Potholes that were large before became gigantic from the pounding rivers of rain and the unsuspecting cars that barreled unknowingly into them. There were very few locals walking through town and those that did brave the weather were completely soaked to the skin. It was an incredible sight and 3 days later we are still witnessing the aftermath effects of the storm.
We were optimistic that the rain would cool the temperature down, but so far no luck. So we’ll suffer the heat and wait until it builds to a point that the rain comes tumbling down again.
posted by Sniders in Africa at 2/12/2006 06:17:00 PM
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