Rainy Season

Today was the first day of this year's rainy season that I remembered how truly terrible last rainy season was. Yesterday it rained off and on which created a miserable sauna/ steam bath kind of effect, but today's weather was torrential downpour. I remembered thinking rainy season was terrible last year during PST and now I know that I was correct in that belief. After going to the center to take a shower (my neighborhood still has regained running water) and to give my goody bags to the trainees heading to Tivuouane for the week, Jackie, Katherine, and I headed out for lunch.

Ramadan is giving me the ceeb (rice) break that I so desperately needed. What I didn't need was to get rained on while trying to get a cab. A cab ride from the center to the Les Delices is only a few minutes long, but in those couple of minutes Thies experienced a flash flood as the rain came in torrents. All of the streets were flooded and I had very little faith that our cab was going to make it, but we did and once we forded the street to get into the restaurant we all took turns washing our muddy/ nasty-Thies-road-water feet off in the bathroom sink. Classy.

Thinking the rain would subside we had a leisurely lunch. No such luck and a couple hours later it was still pouring. Stupidly, we all decided to leave. After Jackie got a cab back to the center Katherine and I were lured into the rain by a cab, the driver of which then pulled off to the side of the road and told us he wasn't going anywhere. Several minutes of standing in the rain later we got another cab which took us to the bank where Katherine and I parted ways. She had told our original cab to wait for her, but I was left in the rain, huddling under a tree trying to get some for of transportation for another 20 minutes.

The rain did mean that when I finally arrived back at my house soaking wet my family was sleeping so I could also take a nap undisturbed by Ahmed. The rain also means that my family collected a bunch of water and we can actually clean things which is nice.