Another World

All this time I thought I lived in the desert...this week I went back to K-ville to visit with friends and to work on getting a well put into one of the villages. The trip there was a huge shock.

It's been raining a lot this year, like the most it's rained in living memory (take a stab in the dark as to how long that actually means). Rivers are at record highs and there has been a ton of flooding...especially in the East where we went. Flooding means that cholera and malaria spread like wildfire which is a much bigger problem than the flooding itself.
We expected K-ville to be a lot worse than it was. Last week there was a special on Al Jazeera about all the flooding and it looked really bad. We thought that the bridge into town might be washed out and we'd have to turn around and drive 10 hours back to the capitol (there's only one bridge). Surprisingly, though, it was fairly dry. The river that comes during rainy season burst it's banks last week and came within about 100 yards of flooding our house. PTL for the sandbags at the end of the street....I'm not sure who put them there, but they sure saved us.

Who knew that sand could grow grass?!? Y'all have seen previous pictures, there's absolutely nothing out there. This is definitely not a normal thing and, apparently, it doesn't do this during a normal rainy season, just once every 60? years. Remember the desert monkeys? (if not, see June posts) They used to be right here. Now there are just these women hanging out and talking. My guess? The monkeys had to migrate to find some more desert!

It was like traveling in Africa...I know I actually am in Africa but it has never really looked like it. The weather was cooler (i.e.105) and the the scenery was beautiful and colorful instead of just plain brown. I know it's just the weather but it really made a huge difference, not only in the appearance of things but in the way people were. They all just looked so happy, not nearly as oppressed. People were actually smiling. It was great!