When it rains, it pours.

We've had some major rain storms here in The Gambia during the past week. After hearing about all the floods all over the world, it makes me pretty nervous. My road has always had some pretty poor drainage, made worse by the improvement of the South Bank road that runs through my village. In an "effort" to stem these drainage problems, the commercial farm in my village sent out a bulldozer to do this to my road:

Hmmm... an impassable awkward pile of dirt. Yes, this will surely stem the flooding/standing water issues on this road. The theory was put to the test this week when we had some of the biggest storms I've experienced since I've lived here. Houses fell down, compounds were flooded, and my road turned into a river... When that river reached the dam of mud, we got a lake!

This is my backyard. All that brown is water. I have a step down from my house about 6 or 8 inches high. The water was creeping over it just when the rain let up. Thank you, rain god, for stopping just in the nick of time. The other houses in my compound weren't so lucky. We had flooding, but luckily my host fathers built sturdy houses so nothing crashed.

This is the inside of my compound. That's a lot of water... This didn't happen last year. True, the rains were heavier, but I'm going to blame this issue on questionable water management techniques. The boys in my compound spent the whole night bailing out their houses, and all of the next day the neighborhood was working on the road. All this while fasting for Ramadan! Life... it's not easy.