Floods!!!

Last night it rained like I've never seen it rain before. It was a long night.

It started around 6pm, the sky was cloudy and you could hear thunder. I figured it would rain pretty quickly so I headed home. But I was wrong, it didn't rain, not until 9:30. It's interesting here because the air is already so dry, you can smell rain long before you see or hear it. When I smelled it, I made a comment to my roommate about how stupid it was that I hurried home 3 hours ago and how the smell of rain in the Sandbox is so great...well...

You know how I've mentioned that around here your brain and logical skills really don't work the same as they normally would and I'm not really sure why? Well, here's another example of that. The power went out right as it began to start raining hard and so I walked into my room to turn off the cooler and things. When I walked in the door I immediately felt rain on my face like I was standing outside. Instead of an immediate reaction, I stood there for a few seconds, realizing that there was something odd going on, but not quite sure what that thing was. I actually even turned around and started to go back into the living room before I realized that I was INSIDE and it's not supposed to be raining. Sure enough, it was raining sideways like a hurricane and my windows were open. Big deal right? You just close them. Well, that would be true in a normal world, but this is a special place...this is the Sandbox.

You see, my windows don't actually close. They're the kind that swing open from side to side. They have screens on them, so usually it's not all that important that they close all the way..usually. I actually can't reach all of the windows at once, so I'm going back and forth between them, trying to wedge them closed while the wind just keeps blowing them wide open. In the process, I'm getting soaked, but I can't wipe off my face b/c then more windows blow open...and all this in the dark. I yelled to my roommate and she came to help. We each held some windows closed with one hand while we moved the stuff from underneath the windows so it wouldn't get any wetter. It was actually pretty hilarious!

Once we got stuff moved we began looking for the extra towels...which consist of 15 washcloths that someone just happened to leave here last month (thanks Megan!!). The problem with my windows is this; they used to fit exactly right when we moved in during the dry season, but then the rainy season came and everything that was wooden expanded so that we either couldn't open OR couldn't shut any of our doors and windows. We had the carpenter come out and shave things down, but we didn't want him to shave too much off the windows for the next dry season when they shrink back down. I don't want inch wide gaps during a dust storm. That plan seemed to be a good one at the time...now I might be rethinking that.

I got my friend D from next door. My idea was to duct tape the windows as far shut as we could get them so that at least they wouldn't be wide open. That way the rain would just hit and drip in and onto the 'towels' instead of hitting me while I was laying in bed agains the opposite wall! But that would require digging through trunks in the dark to find the duct tape (I still haven't really unpacked). He had a better idea and got some wire to wire them shut, which worked well and didn't mess up the paint on the wall. Just about the time all this had passed and we got the windows adequately shut it stopped raining and we didn't need it!

We had water coming in from that entire side of our apartment, in every window and underneath every door which was a problem. But then there was the stairwell. We live on the second floor and above us is just one apartment that is on the roof. There's not an actual door to get to the roof, just a piece of sheet metal that has hinges and doesn't actually close. Well, the rain was blowing in that door, down the stairs and right into the front door of my friends apartment. So they had a bucket in the stairwell trying to catch some of the water before it came under their door and then towels (and water) everywhere too, plus they also have balconies on the rain side of their apartment.

So, to sum up, we were all a mess, running around in the dark trying desperately to keep rain out of our apartments and just when we thought we'd succeeded, it stopped raining. I never thought that, in moving to the Sahara desert, I would need to worry about my 2nd floor apartment getting flooded...guess I was wrong!