Rainy Season Begins

We had our first real taste of rainy season this weekend, and it turns out it's a lot like sitting through a NJ snowstorm: stuck inside watching movies and dangerous roads. We're not sure how long it'll last, but I suppose we could go mud-sledding when it's all over. Last night I had an up close and personal experience with the rain.

Some background: we live up on a hill, pretty well isolated from traffic and other city life. When we go "down the road" we really do go down a winding path. At the bottom of the hill, we hit a service road that runs parallel to the main highway of Dar Es Salaam. Between the service road and the highway is a very large ditch. The crossover between the service road and the highway is just to the south of our hill road. The highway is 2 lanes of traffic running north, then a median, and then 2 lanes of traffic running south.

Last night we decided to try to get takeout from "P Square," the restaurant just across the highway from our road. It's pretty much the closest possible place to us that a restaurant could be built. In good weather, it would be easy to walk down our hill, cross the highway (well, that's not always easy), and arrive at P Square in less than 10 minutes. Despite this closeness, Steph and I never actually have eaten there (it is fairly new). The kids have all had outings there with other families, and we heard very good things about the food and the prices. We felt it was high time to rectify our oversight!

Our friend and fellow teacher Dan lives just up the road from us on the hill. His wife is out of town this weekend so we invited him over. (Dan's a fellow game player and shares Dutch reformed roots, so he is always welcome here!) The plan was for Dan and I to go on down to P Square, pick up some food, and head back. It was currently only drizzling, but it had been raining all day, so we decided to drive. I felt bad about that, since it is so close!

Well, it was already raining pretty hard when we arrived. There is no real parking at P Square, so I pulled into the grass by an open field. Dan remarked how empty, barren, and dirty the field was. So ordering food here was the first interesting thing. P Square serves typical Tanzanian food...with no menu. I wanted to order some chips, some beef skewers (Mishkaki), chicken, and rice and beans. If I wasn't told what to order, I am not sure I would know what to get! Of course, our waitress didn't know what I wanted, so it took 2 waitresses and me writing our order down on paper for them to get that set.

When we first arrived, Dan and I sat down at a table near where the water ran down the roof. With the wind, the waitress was afraid we'd get wet, so she asked us to move. As we sat and waited (it took about an hour for the food), it was raining harder and harder. A pool of water outside the restaurant (it is a covered outdoor area) got over the lip of the concrete floor and the water started running beneath our feet, just a little. A few minutes later, it was an inch deep, so the waitress asked us to move again.

When we stood up and looked around us, we finally realized how bad the rain was and what was happening outside. The open field next to the car was actually where the run off from a culvert that ran under the highway came out. This field was now completely under water, and the water was running fast. It looked like a raging river, with whitewater-like rapids being created by bushes and trash in the field. The car was on the edge of this, and the street between us and the car was also completely under water. I started to worry.

I had the thought that if the water got any deeper, we might have trouble getting out of there, and I saw a patch of higher ground where I could park safely. After all their efforts to keep me dry, the wait staff must have chuckled when I just walked out into the downpour. Crossing the street was shocking...the water was already half way up my shin and really had quite a current! I moved the car safely, and made it back to the restaurant completely soaked after only maybe a minute outside. Dan helpfully filmed the whole thing on his smart phone.

Well, the culvert was now putting out water at full volume. We said, "the good news is that it can't get any deeper, it's already to full capacity." Dan then thought, "unless the water starts coming over the highway." Ha, that couldn't happen!

We got our food just after that, and paid. It could only have been 5 minutes. And as we left, we realized that indeed, the water was coming over the highway. As we crossed the street, it was already much deeper, and Dan actually fell in a pretty deep hole. Thinking fast, he was able to keep the food dry! The water was filthy and smelly, though, and he definitely need to change.

Once we could see the highway, it was like another world. Water was everywhere. A motorcycle crossed in front of us in the south-bound lanes and got stuck when the water came up to his hubcaps. Once we crossed the road into the north bound lanes, the road was almost completely impassable. The water was DEEP, and the large ditch separating the highway from the service road was invisible, completely under water. In fact, there was no sign off the area where I needed to cross from the highway to the service road. We realized this when we saw an SUV halfway on the road and halfway in the ditch (and therefore halfway submerged). They guessed incorrectly.

We managed to go north a bit and made it to the next cross over which was on higher ground. A bajaji was stuck in the mud, but we got around him and then back up our hill. Whew!

In review: went to get food across the street, waited an hour, forded a river, avoided driving off the road only due to another person doing it first, ate food! It was pretty good.