We're in the rainy season here in Luanda. Luckily the rain has been concentrated here in Luanda although I just heard that they had some deadly landslides that killed 25 in Huila province, similar to the landslides that killed 60-something last year in Lobito. These rain storms that we've had here in Luanda are the worst we've seen in our time here. As I've mentioned recently, the rain this year, coupled with other sanitation issues, has lead to a large outbreak of malaria and yellow fever. Sadly, I went to work on Tuesday and found out that the 6 year-old son of my English students Joao, or "Blue" as we call him, passed away from malaria on Friday. His fever spiked for 2 days, and then he was gone. As my students were telling me this, I could feel the tears well up and I had to quickly walk out of the room before I broke down. Statistics are just statistics until it hits close to home. It doesn't seem possible that still in the year 2016, people are dying of malaria, etc. And it certainly doesn't seem fair. Every Sunday, my family takes our anti-malarials to prevent us from getting the disease, but it's easy, cheap and available for us to get them. For the locals, it's a luxury they can't afford. Hardly fair, and it just makes me sick to think of someone dying from something that could have easily been prevented. What's amazing to me is how Angolans are "used to" losing loved ones. They show and express sadness, but they've come to terms with the fact that "this is how it is here," as my students say. Their faith is an example to me as they express their knowledge that it's God's will and all will be okay. My mind knows this, but my heart still weeps.
And apparently the heavens were weeping that day that he passed away, because Friday was a day when we were hit hard with rain. Unfortunately on Friday, the kids were having a school assembly that both Briant and I were planning on attending for "Language Week"(usually they have mid-week assemblies that we can't get to), but the rain started about a half-hour before we were supposed to leave. It got bad so quickly, that we knew we couldn't go. Sounds funny because in the states, you don't think of rain as being a huge inhibitor to activity, especially if you live somewhere like Oregon. Here however, there are no street drains and the streets are full of potholes where the water accumulates--this makes for awful travel conditions and a ton of traffic. We had two hours to get to the school, but we knew we wouldn't make it. And then we'd have to turn right around to come back home with the kids, probably in a minimum of 2 hours of traffic.
Running with the water on the streets, is a very thick red clay dirt that Luanda sits on. I feel bad for the people at the bottom of these hills. Their houses always flood. But of course most Angolans are dealing with house flooding because of water that leaks through their roofs. So from the comfort of my apartment, I watched below:
People seeking cover except a few brave souls, including what appears to be a bit of a "crazy" man with a white stick and a drenched cardboard box. He walked into the middle of the street to entertain me, or "direct" traffic: :)
On the ground, Briant got a ride home and got these pics:
The next day, Saturday, was sunny and very hot. Here are men shoveling piles of leftover mud into the back of a garbage truck. A thankless, and endless task for sure especially because we had more rain on Sunday.
It started raining right as we were getting ready to
leave church. We were not prepared with umbrellas. We had a small waterfall of sorts in the hallway exiting the church, as rain started pouring in through large openings in the roof, so everyone in the branch found cover. Seeing that the rain wasn't going to let up, Briant ran out to get the car while the kids and I stayed dry with the branch members who had to wait for it to calm down so they could walk out and find a taxi. We were lucky to be able to hop in our car and go.
You can imagine how humid it is right now--it doesn't take anything at all to work up a sweat, which Briant and I do all too easily on our commute. It's an understatement to say that we're anxiously awaiting "winter!"
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