It is raining.
As Liberia receives about 200 inches of rain a year, I guess this is not unusual. But it still seems novel to me that it is pouring rain so hard we cannot talk to each other in the house as it is too noisy. And it is July. Back in California, it is hot and dry. Here, it is hot and wet. Even after two years, it still seems odd to me.
The rivers are all swollen and running fast. The swamp land is flooded. Now would be a good time to survey land for a prospective land purchase, as one could tell if it floods. For those who did not do their homework, there are newly-built homes that are surrounded by large bodies of water! One fellow down the road recently built a four foot wide cement sidewalk to the door of his store. He built it about eighteen inches tall. There was such a large lake around his new store building that customers could not come in, so the new sidewalk goes to the edge of the highway.
The roads have become muddy rivers. People walking down the road get splashed on by cars driving by, as tires hit mud puddles. Walking anywhere becomes a challenge to stay clean. The mud is slick, red, and tenacious!
In this current storm, it has already rained for thirty hours straight, without ever completely stopping. At times, it was ferocious, with strong winds and deluge downpours, and then it would calm down for a few hours to a steady drizzle before again getting angry and unleashing another round of unrelenting precipitation. We have new streams on the village site today, and the regular drainage streams are overflowing. It is a rather impressive Liberian storm.
I do not mind the rain. Neither do the frogs, as there is a constant symphony coming from the swamp area around the compound. They all sound happy; it is a choir of throaty, cheery songs.
Hope you all stay dry today (oh, that's right! You will stay dry...it is July! I forget.)
Babs
