Just like the rains down in Africa

Thanks for those of you that have been praying for Mama Maria. She left the cholera ward on Monday night and is staying with her daughter trying to rest and get her strength back. Part of the reason why she  got sick (and everybody else gets sick this time of the year) is because of the rains. They were the most consistent during January, but as soon as we hit February they turned destructive.

Two weeks ago a storm came through on Sunday and destroyed hundreds of homes and washed out countless roads. One more came through on Thursday and Saturday that week much to the same effect. Mud houses just can't stand up to the weight of rain that is falling. Ground gives way at the absolute quantity of water falling.

Here's some pictures I took after the Saturday storm.

This is the corner where about half the orphanage drains out. The drain partially collapsed and impeded much of the water from leaving. This is Mama Maria's house. But don't worry. This all happened while she was visiting her brother in another city.

The water backed up and was touching the steps at Victor's house at one point. And keep in mind these pictures are about an hour after it stopped raining.

Of course, for the boys, it turns into fun and games climbing on chairns to traverse our... um... pool, or lake, or pond? Whatever you call it, Belson and Muaparato were traversing it.

You have to traverse it. It's very dangerous to walk through puddles or wade in the water because you can get m'tawi-tawi. Its just a horrible fungus all over your foot that is really painful. Never gotten it, but usually somebody will pick some up during the rainy season.

The rain also makes our road nearly impassable. There reason is up at the power station at the top of the hill, this nice little pond all collects and drains down our street.

This is the view up the street. At the lake, I figured out it was running at about 1.5 liters/second. Keep in minnd that this water in our street you see here is not standing water, it's running down our road. Here there is probably more from the water that has been collecting as it runs down the hill.

The view looking down from our gate shows more water running. Any spot where a hole has opened up people fill with branches and leaves to warn people that its a giant hole and not a little puddle. Those are the leaves you see in the middle of the road. Where the road bends downhill in the picture is about as far as you can pass.

The rain rushing down our road creates problems with holes and ditches and erosion. There are about 5 spots that I counted where the road has eroded away and exposed water pipes connecting our bairro. This is as far as I dared pass with the camera because more and more  water collected the further down the hill you went. About 50 yards/meters past the orphanage the road becomes impassable as it has eroded into a ditch/gulley/canyon about 5 feet (1.5m) deep and about 4 feet (1.2m) deep. And from what I could guess had collected all the water and was flowing at about 8 liters (2gallons) per second. That is A LOT OF WATER.

Jose standing with our neighbor Celso. Jose, as you well know, has major developmental problems and problems hearing and speaking. Celso, our neighbor, has a surprisingly common birth defect here and was born without ear canals, so is very limited in communication. Imagine cupping your hands around your ears. All the time. They both need to rely on a lot of non-verbal social skills to interact and because of that play really well with eachother. In the bottom corner is the drain from the orphanage. Given the water above it should be full of rushing water, but since it collapsed inside the water is trickling out.