Anticipating Rain

I started taking pictures of road side gutters as soon as I arrived in Ghana. They are, if nothing else, impressive. In Canada, a gutter is formed by the slope away from the crown of the road meeting a 15-20cm curb. Here the gutters are formed from concrete and are built down from the grade of the road — they can be as much as 45cm wide and 60cm deep.

The gutters are ominous and, to my eye, present a real driving hazard. They are not set apart from the roadway. Instead, where in Canada we would have a curb that rises from the road way, here, in most places, the roadway suddenly plunges down, with a slash certainly large enough to allow a tire down.

Form obviously follows function; I expect when the rainy season arrives it will pour.

Anna-Marie and I were introduced to tropical rains on our first full day in Cambodia. While out for dinner that evening it began to rain heavily. On the ride back to our new home, the tuk tuk (an elaborate cart pulled behind a motorcycle) stalled when the "puddle" on the road rose up and flooded the engine of the vehicle. While we sat sheltered behind plastic tarps that formed the sides of the tuk tuk, friendly Cambodians dashed out into the rain with rags to help our driver dry the air intake on his engine.

A few days later we stood in our living room and watched as the rain water mounted the 30cm curb at the roadside, and then the 5cm rise up to the driveway, and then the 15cm step up to the front side walk, and then the 15cm step up to our front door, and finally was lapping at the sill of our door. Another centimetre or two and water would have spilled over into our house, which we learned it had done before.

I didn't have to wait for the rainy season. On Thursday, for the first time this year, the skies opened up and let loose. There have been a couple of threats of rain before, but nothing ever happened. On Thursday I was working away in my office when just before 1:00 I noticed it was getting dark out. I wanted to get some fried rice for lunch from down the lane and thought I had better go now, just in case it actually did rain.

Five minutes later as I left the vendor with rice in hand, the rain came. And came. And came. Quite soaked, seconds later I ducked into a portico and waited it out. I also ate my lunch, watched the walk and lawn in front of me disappear under the water, a frog hop by (awakening to the newly wet world), traffic creep through the increasingly large puddle filling the round-about in front of me (with water up to the running boards of the largest SUVs), and listened to the clock on Balme Library chime 1:15, 1:30, and 2:00.

I didn't have my camera with me, but I suspect there will be many more chances to capture the rains in the coming months. By all accounts, this was an atypical rain fall: big and early. The damage it caused around Accra covered the news for the next two days. And only today, Sunday, have the concrete walks around campus looked dry.

When finally the rain let up and I ventured from my shelter I notice a car on the far side of the round-about trapped in one of the massive gutters. On the round-about the gutters are actually set apart from the road by a low curb, painted white. But during the rain storm the curb, gutter, and part of the grassy knoll in the centre of the round-about were obliterated.
The driver, executing too sharp a turn, and without any visual aid, turned into the gutter, and his car now sat on it's front axle in the road.

On returning to my office I took off my cold, wet shirt with some silly idea that I could continue working — in my cold, wet pants. A few minutes later, again dressed in my clothes, I headed home for a warm shower and dry clothes. 

The rest of the day was cooler as a result. But where I am used to a good rain breaking a heat wave, the opposite happens here. The rain drove away the haze that has sheltered me from the equatorial sun since my arrival. Friday arrive bright and hot, much hotter than it has been in weeks. Still, it took till today to evaporate, or for the ground to absorb, all the moisture.

In this photo you can see the high tide mark left on the grass by a ring of leaves. This is the spot where a day before the driver got stranded.