Rain, Rain

Even though it's supposed to be the dry season right now, we've had a day or two of rain every two weeks or so. The downpour is deafening on our tin roof so between the cows, children, rain, frogs, snoring, and thunder so loud that it rattles my insides, I didn't get much sleep last night.

We slipped in a few hours of work today, but with all of our work sites reduced to soggy mudslips, there wasn't so much we could do. I wrapped up my assessments in the afternoon just as the sky darkened with a full gray cover, and made it back to the house as the first drops started to fall.

The sky took on an ominous pinkish brown tone, and water cascaded down. As I sat in an impromptu logistics meeting with Save the Children, we were no longer able to communicate because we simply couldn't yell above the din of the rain on the tin roof. Outside, the wind blew the rain against our windows, and we could see spindly coconut tree trunks waving wildly in the strangely glowing sky. Water pushed in through the window frames, pooled on the floor, seeped under the doors - it even worked its way through some of the screws on our 2-month old roof! Wind blew in through the rafters, the power went out, and we were left with flickery candles in our cold house.

This is a simple thunderstorm that wouldn't even rate on an actual hurricane scale; I can't imagine the power of a storm like Cyclone Sidr, the reason we're here.