When a lot of people think of Africa, they think of desert, sand, hot sun, very few trees, and only a little green. Well, Rwanda is not that Africa!! Rwanda is very green, and tonight we had more than enough rain!! It started about 5:00 p.m. No big deal, but it rained harder and kept on and on. I felt sorry for the Rwandans with leaky roofs. As the rains kept on, I wondered if some houses would collapse.
Around 6:00 p.m. Matt called to say their mission house was being flooded. Okay, no problem, I’d come help out, but I didn’t know what I was getting into!! The house is built on the cutout of a hill. All the water on two sides of the hill was running down the walkway to the front door. The drain near the front door was blocked with leaves. And on the far end of the house, the yard slopes up a little, creating a huge lake on two sides of the house. These were, of course, the two sides of the house where the three doors are located!! Matt's family, sitting down to dinner, didn't realizing their house was slowly being taken over by water until it reached the dinner table!! So they called for help.
The more hands the better in a situation like this. I came with brooms. I had my umbrella up, but by the time I got there, I knew it was useless. It was just raining too hard. The deep water soaked my shoes, so ditching those along with my umbrella, glasses, watch, and cell phone, I went to work. While Matt's family mopped out the inside, I attacked the outside! Why mop out the house if the water level outside is higher?! First, I cleared the blocked drain at the front door, creating a whirlpool of rushing muddy water. Then I looked for another drain along the back of the house. There wasn’t one! I suggested to Matt that he might consider putting a drain there, and Matt said he'd have to think about it. J The next plan of attack was to push the water up an incline to the drain, away from the main flooding at the two back doors. Another reason to put in a second drain!
With the rain pelting down, lightning streaking across the night sky, and thunder crashing all around, I worked in stocking feet in ankle deep water, trying to keep up with the water racing down the hill and the rainwater barreling off the tin roof of the house. Ezekiel, one of our day watchmen who hadn’t gone home yet because it was raining so hard, helped out. We got a pretty good system going. With brooms and floor squeegees, we walked down the sidewalk side by side, pushing water ahead of us as fast as we could toward the drain! We don't speak the same language, but we worked well together. Thanks to teamwork and a slackening of the rain, slowly the water level lowered, so the water being pushed out of the house didn't run back in. The plan of action for tomorrow: dry out the many wet area rugs in the sunshine and install a new drain!!