The Flood

Our only inkling of any weather at all was in the evening- 5 minutes of rapid pattering on the roof.

In the morning, our drive to Dafourt told a different story.

Along the drive in the morning traffic was backed up along the road. What should have taken 30 minutes to get to our remote clinic took over an hour.

Buildings had water 1/3 the way up their doors. Police blocked off the roads and redirected the already chaotic morning traffic. Later we would discover several people in the tent cities surrounding our neighborhood had drowned during flash flooding in their sleep.

All from 5 minutes of rain.

We continued on to our clinic, today held in an open air church and saw our patients. Many smiling faces and many children. Sue had brought inflatable balls with her from the United States, gifts from her company. The children saw us inflating them before clinic and were so excited they could hardly sit through their exams.

Just before noon we had word from our driver that there was a lot of restlessness brewing in town and that we should get back immediately. The people, frustrated with frequent flooding in the area, were now demonstrating against the government for lack of a response by burning tires and blocking the roads. There was concern that if we did not leave now we would not get back to the Heart to Heart Center by nightfall.

We packed up to the disappointment of the crowd and explained why we needed to leave. We were stopped frequently by backed-up traffic from the demonstrations and roadblocks. Our driver quickly and skillfully negotiated all of these until we stumbled directly on a fresh roadblock.

A group of men had pulled stones onto the dirt road and had dragged a large cart across to block the way. We were concerned until a man recognized our driver who explained who we were and what we were doing there. The roadblocks were removed and we were allowed to pass. We continued in relative ease, relieved to have the worst of the obstacles behind us, and realizing that had we left any later we would certainly have been trapped on the road with few options. We passed many of the UN security details posted to the area, trying to address the needs of the crowd.

We were happy to finally return back to the Heart to Heart Center for the day, early but safe thanks to the quick thinking of our team and the impeccable skills and connections of our great driver.

By the next morning the demonstrations had ended, things were back to relative normal, and there were only puddles on the ground.

-Aaron