Nenya.net

Tropical torrents

The rains continue... in fact they have been so strong that they have swept away half of a sleeping policeman on my road. There are a lot of sleeping policemen on the roads around here (put in to stop the UN troops killing so many children when they were based in Freetown). These cause a lot of traffic jams in the mornings as the taxis (in particular) struggle over them to get up the hill. Anyway, as I have mentioned in the past, the roads have become rivers and several boulders (of varying sizes) have been dislodged, but this is the first time I have seen rains heavy enough to wash away parts of the traffic calming system.
The rains are definitely getting heavier- I went paddling in order to get into a friend's car this weekend- we had been planning to go in search of sunlight but that seemed like a vain hope, so we retired to her house and watched 'The Last King of Scotland' instead- a good, but sometimes violent film about Idi Amin in Uganda and the change that came over him while he was in power there.

Also this weekend, I went on the walk (have been absent from it for various reasons for a few weeks), anyway, it was a nice, easy walk- up whale bay river (no Whales around, no bay and only a bit of a river, tho' am assured that the latter will soon be changed as a result of the rainy seasons). We then enjoyed a pot-luck picnic on the beach (with sun) and the waves were somewhat less violent than the previous weekend :-)

Several people seem to be leaving at the moment (I don't think this is just because it's the rainy season), which means there's a few leaving parties happening. However, it's also the beginning of the research season, when several people come over from various universities to research into various aspects of the social, economic and post-conflict development and structures of the country. I think it's the arrival of so many people coming here for 2-3months that meant when I arrived someone asked how long I was staying for and their response to my reply was 'Ah, well in that case I can be your friend because you're here for at least 6months' (or in my case somewhat longer). There's a lot of comings and goings here, which makes life more interesting but also makes it somewhat unstable and harder to really get to know people properly unless they're here for a decent amount of time.

Labels: beach, leaving party, rain, roads, traffic, walk

posted by Nenya @ 10:49 am