Rainy season

When I left Finland, the only topic for small talk was the weather: the huge amount of snow, and the coldness. Weather is a popular topic for small talk here as well but we talk about rain and floods.

I came to Zambia in the middle of the rainy season. The rains are supposed to start around December or January but this year they started very late, in the beginning of February. The rain can both continue for several hours or just come as a heavy shower. While the rainy season is of course necessary, it also brings problems with it. Already some areas are so badly flooded that people have had to move away from their houses. In tv, they also warned of possible cholera outbreaks.

In Kamwala South (where I live), the roads are at the moment in an awful state, but I haven't seen flooded houses. The worrying part in the beginning was that here the water wasn't really moving anywhere. I was told that there is no proper drainage system. Then one day, we were wondering why around Snow White the situation seemed worse compared to the day before even though there wasn't much of rain. When we got back home, the mystery was solved: the water is actually moving now, slowly but surely.

Seeing the roads now also solved the question why they are in such a bad condition. Driving a car on the roads requires an experienced driver, but also walking is tricky if you don't have gumboots. You have to jump over the ponds, and sometimes the distances can be too long. For the locals, the only thing that is funnier than a white girl jumping over the puddles is a white girl failing in that. I bought a pair of gumboots pretty quickly, but I still need to be careful where I step as even the gumboots are not enough everywhere.

Last weekend it didn't rain anymore, so I am hoping that the rains are ceasing now. Soon, I will miss them as already now, after three days of sunshine and warm wind the roads are so dusty that you have to close your eyes when a car passes you.

(The house in the picture is from the neighborhood but not our house.)