Water, water

Now it really is everywhere. This is proper rainy season. It’s kinda cool.

In the last few days, there has been at least one session per day of proper, heavy, tropical rain: the kind of rain that means you’re going to get wet if you even step into it for a second, and the chances of getting to work at all are minimal. The river has flooded. That’s the Kaduna River, only one street away from us. Today, our neighbours (two other volunteers) who live on the road right next to it came to let us know that we should go and take a look. Most of the road is covered, many houses are flooded and there was a Red Cross van there with an inflatable raft. For those who have been shipped (literally) out of their homes, it’s not kinda cool.

On our street, there’s one compound that’s flooded, and when it rains heavily, there’s a sort of swamp to the side of the road which saturates and overflows, turning the road into more of a river which we then have to wade through in our sandals. But our landlord very confidently told us today that, no matter that people down the road were packing up, the water wouldn’t reach us so we shouldn’t worry – and who am I to argue?

The volunteers who live on the river bank have left a couple of bags of stuff with us to stay dry, and we’re expecting them to come over at some point during the night to sleep if their place starts to flood. We have taken everything off the floor and out of bottom drawers and piled it high on our many sofas.

So in many ways, it’s not at all cool. But there’s still a definite air of excitement about the place. Several roadside shops were shut; they weren’t flooded, but I think the owners just wanted to join the groups of people standing around, looking at the flood and chatting – like normal life was suspended, a sort of Blitz spirit. And of course, because it’s Nigeria, there’s a lot of laughter and joking.

We attempted to go out to a bar tonight for beers and suya (barbecued meat), but halfway through eating, the sky turned a very ominous shade of black and we all dispersed sharpish (with half-finished beers. Sigh.). So here we are. Sitting in the dark, finishing off our suya and starting on a bottle of red wine. The thunder’s rumbling and the lightning flashes occasionally; the rain has died down a bit, but when it’s heavy the sound on our metal roof is amazing!

In other – still water-related – news, the plumber (to be properly Nigerian, pronounce every letter) came today and fixed our ever-running tap. He broke our sink in the process, but you can’t have everything in life.