We started with a strike, moved on to volcanic eruption, and today we are doing torrential downpour accompanied by flooding. Every day this week has brought a different crazy calamity.
I knew it had been raining all night without a break. But coffee is my only vice so I wasn’t going to let a mere wall of water deter me from my regular routine. I thought I’d tuk into town, but there were no tuks on our street. I suppose that should have been my first clue that today bit different. I walked to the Dehli by the lake to get my coffee. Still couldn’t find any tuks. The river bed was full of muddy water, much like the pictures when hurricane Stan his in 2005. But I ventured forth toward my goal of hot java.
There was hardly anyone on the street. When I got to Santander, the main street, it looked like a ghost town. I walked toward the lake. The only place I could walk was in the crest of the road. On the sides they were already small rivers rushing from the top of Santander. Whenever the rare tuk would come down the street I would wade through the rivers, which were already up to my mid calf, so that the tuk offspray wouldn’t soak my pants. When I got to the Dehli, I was happy to see that it was open, but most of the tables were covered with plastic. But their coffee machine was working, so I felt the wading through the Santander waters was worth it.
Kier had woken up and wanted to join me. I told her it wasn’t worth the trek, but she was determined to repeat my adventure, but with a tuk. While I was digging for my cellphone in my pocket, I set my umbrella down for a split second. In that time the wind caught it and blew it into the street river. I was not going to let it get away so I ran down the street making splashes that came up to my shoulders. When I finally caught up with it, I was so happy I let out a shout, not noticing that these two guys were watching me like I was some crazy kid playing in the rain with new boots. I waved at them and they laughed. The umbrella wasn’t even working anymore. The rain was pounding right through it onto my head. The only goal left was to keep my cell phone dry.
Once Kier and I were all at the Dehli and drinking our hot coffee and eating our yummy breakfast, we were a bit stuck. The wind was starting to really blow, the rain was increasing. We thought we’d wait it out until there was a bit of a lull. This was at 9:15. Three hours later, we decided no lull was a coming. Fewer and fewer tuks were passing by, the street was now a complete river raging toward the lake. My friends called and said the play for tonight is cancelled. That the river has gone around the playhouse. Another friend called and said stock up on food and water, this could last for a while. Another friend called a tuk and asked him to come and pick us up at the Dehli. He said he would be about 8 minutes. 30 minutes later he arrived. He said the big bridge by the girl’s school was no longer passable and that everyone has to go up past where the town begins to use the other big bridge. He took us to the big grocery store to stock up on food.
The grocery store was a zoo. We paid for the tuk to wait for us. The store was crazy, people in a bit of a panic buying huge amounts of food. Usually people are buying 2-5 items, because that’s all they can afford. Only once have I seen someone use a cart in that store, and it was a gringo family. Today people were buying food by the cart. Never seen anything like it here. We couldn’t find a basket so we split up and grabbed as much stuff as we could quickly. All the lines were open, but it took a while to get through the check out. Lots of people were trying to get our tuk, but he waited for us.
Then through the pouring rain, rivers in the streets, crazy holes in the road, he drove me to a store to get more mintues on my phone, because I was out of them. My friend said to stock up on minutes in case something crazy happens, we need to be able to contact each other. I get that. The first store didn’t have any phone minutes left, the second did. I bought 100Q. Next the tuk had to drive out of town to get to the only bridge that is passable by tuk. The road was washing away at the top, water gushing down the mountain endangering people’s houses. There were lots of people with shovels trying to save certain properties, up to their knees in muddy water and mud. As we passed over the bridge we could see where we had the play the night before. The property was fine, but water was rushing around it on both sides. No wonder we can’t do the play tonight, the parking lot was under water. As we drove parallel to the river we could see at least one house that had falled into the river because of the riverbed being widened by the rushing water. When we got to the main bridge through town, next to the girl’s school, we could see why it was impassable. The bridge itself was fine, but there was a huge hole leading up to the bridge. Not safe. The shore next to the bridge was being washed away. Lots of people were gathering to see if the bridge will be washed away like five years ago with Stan. It took between one and a half and two years to have that bridge rebuilt. I hope they don’t lose it again.
When we got back to our house, Madi’s two sleepover friends were here. They were originally planning to sleepover tonight and we all figured they may as well keep those plans. So I’ll have two extra girls to wait out the tropical storm with us. They were positively delighted to hang out during the pouring rain. I’m so glad my sister didn’t choose to buy a house on the river. I feel so much safer being inland and also not being close to the mountain where mudslides could take place. Kier went to hangout elsewhere. The teens do not care about the weather at all, they just keep doing their hanging out thing. She grabbed a bag of Doritoes, some cookies, made some sandwiches, took a bunch of movies, an umbrella, rolled up her pants to the knee in order to wade through the water and the streets, and they left. I told her to stay off all the bridges except the main ones, and they were off.
The sleepover girls are having fun. The electricity flickers on and off, so they are watching a movie on the laptop, which has at least a couple of hours of battery. This way they can watch a movie uninterrupted. They have made at least one trip to the store to buy candy. The only problem with this is that they come back soaking wet from the rain from above and the river on the street below that they must splash through. When they come back they have to shed all their wet clothes at the door. There is no where to dry such a huge volume of wet things, and of course I have no drier, can’t hang them outside to dry, and don’t want them dripping in my house. So they are currently in a growing pile of sopping wetness by the front door. I suppose I’ll send them home in many plastic bags with the sleepover is complete, which could be who knows when.
I can’t fathom how it continues to pour rain without a break. It has been raining nonstop for days. How does the sky manage it. Absolutely mind boggling. I’m assuming we will lose power at some point because something will be washed away with this amount of rain. So I have to finish this, get my popcorn popped ahead of time and charge my computer. Officially hunkering down.