Archive for January, 2010

CARRIE’S STORY

I still don’t know why I woke up. Perhaps it was because the rotary fan blowing in my room was failing to prevent my sweat from penetrating my pajamas. Or maybe it was because the sound of the rain falling on the corrugated plastic skylight in my bathroom was so loud I thought it might shatter. It also could have been the flashes of light that periodically filled my room only to leave the darkness even darker.

Whatever the reason, I awoke in the kind of daze where the world seems more like a dream. Disoriented and a bit unsettled, I wiped the sleep from my eyes as I swung my legs over the side of my bed and reached for the light switch on the wall.

“Water?! What the….”

As the light came on and my eyes focused, I took in the 2-inch deep river of brown water streaming past my bed and over my feet. My heart started to race as I tried to gather my thoughts. You just don’t expect to wake-up in the middle of the night to be surrounded by quickly rising water. As I pulled up my pant legs and stood up I noticed that my computer lay helplessly on the floor gasping for breath, drowning under the runoff. I quickly jumped into action, diving for the computer and pulling the power cord out of the wall without recognizing how wonderful an electrical conductor I would have made at that very moment. Luckily, I escaped without a shock and as the water continued to pour in through the crack under my door I tried to perform CPR on my poor Mac, but to no avail. When it wouldn’t start, I turned my attention to the quickly rising water and went to get help.

“Rob. Rob, wake up. The house is flooding, and I’m freaking out.”

Out of a deep slumber Rob arose to beckon me into his room. With blurry eyes, he looked up and asked me to reiterate, but there really was no need once I turned on the light and he noticed the advancing water on the floor in his room.

“The house, it’s flooding,” I exclaimed. “My computer was on the floor and now it won’t turn on. Where’s your computer? Is it on the floor?”
“No. My computer’s fine. Turn around,” he said as he hopped out of bed dressed only in his favorite mauve undies. Apparently, even in an emergency Rob doesn’t lose his sense of modesty or his respect for women. He threw on a pair of shorts and we ran out of the room to find the source of the water. As we came to the front seating area we noticed the door to our guest house had been dislodged from the force of the raging water, allowing the runoff to pour in at a fast rate. Rob propped the door shut, which helped to slow the stream of water, but we still found ourselves ankle deep in the results of the tropical deluge. As we took a pause to assess the situation, a flash of lightning shone through the window, followed instantly by a roaring crash of thunder.

I could see the alarm in Rob’s eyes as he instructed me to get rubber shoes and stay on my bed out of the water. There was no time to explain, but it was clear that the man had experience with lightning and wasn’t going to take a chance with Mother Nature’s wrath.

When the lightning was no longer at our doorstep, Rob and I got out of bed, rubber-soled shoes strapped on our feet and went to meet Boniface, the night guardsmen who was waiting patiently in the downpour at the front of our guesthouse to lend a hand. Upon stepping outside, Rob the consummate thinker, must have noticed that the drain in front of our house wasn’t working efficiently, so he pulled the filter out, which helped divert some of the water. The two turned their attention to the drains inside the house, and attacked them with the same kind of problem solving. With the drains open, the water started to dissipate and they focused on funneling the water towards its new passage.

Meanwhile, I went to the main house to grab a squeegee from Mike’s bathroom to help with the water cleanup.

“Uh, Mike? There’s been a flood in our house and I need your squeegee,” I explained as I knocked on his door. A bit confused, he told me that it was not a problem and asked if we needed help. I reassured him that we had the situation under control, and he could go back to sleep. Sure enough, no more than two minutes after I returned with the squeegee in hand, Mike was at our door, wide-awake, and chomping at the bit to lend a hand.

So, the four of us cleaned up the guesthouse as Jules, our client and host, worked outside in the rain creating a channel for the water to ensure that the floodwater wouldn’t reach the front of the house. You may ask, what happened to Chadd? Through the three-hour-long commotion he turned over once, grumbled in a half-man, half-bear voice something about helping and fell back to sleep once he got the “all-clear” from his buddies.

The house is back to normal, except for a brand new five-inch high curb in front of our landing. And, we’re all hoping – especially me – that after some good drying time my computer will start again. At the very least, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can save the contents of the hard-drive when I return home to the States. What a difficult way to learn to back up all your data, huh?!

That’s not all I’ve learned though. It’s a theme that’s been reiterated here, time and time again. It’s an idea that you learn to live with, and eventually becomes a part of you – influencing your attitude and your perspective. The night of the flood was just Mother Nature’s way of communicating the same moral: “always expect the unexpected”.

ROB’S STORY

I awoke to a tentative tap on my door. Two thoughts slowly wandered across my groggy mind: “I probably just imagined that.” “If I didn’t imagine that, whoever it is will go away.” Again came the mouse-like tapping. I thought it was probably Jules – some evenings he comes to talk and make sure everything is going well. Upon hearing my hoarse invitation to come in, my mystery visitor – Carrie, it turned out – slowly opened my door and edged her way in my room.

Her first words to me were, “Wake up. The house is flooding and I’m freaking out.” Carrie turned on the lights and her story was immediately corroborated: roughly two inches of muddy water were in the place normally inhabited by my tile floor. Outside my window, I could hear the massive thunderstorm continuing to rage – looked like the flood was just going to get worse.

As I was taking in the situation, Carrie informed me as to the flood’s first victim. “My laptop was on the floor. It got wet and now it won’t turn on.” Oh man… Having once had the hard drive of one of my computers erased and thus losing thousands of pictures and thoughts, I remembered the staggering grief that accompanied the loss. First move: comfort Carrie.

As a child, my parents made sure to train me for emergency situations (my dad being a firefighter; my mom, a nurse). I surveyed my room, thinking about what could go wrong. The electricity was still operating and we had a number of appliances plugged in. Don’t watch television while in the bathtub, right? As a physics student, I had ample opportunities during experiments to electrocute myself and each time I was ‘shocked’ to discover that it hurt. So Carrie and I put on rubber shoes (mine are a retina-destroying green) and went around the house, unplugging everything that might later electrocute us. I woke Chadd up to let him know what was going on, and he unplugged his laptop and went back to sleep. Well played, my friend.

I’m scared of lightning. To my defense, I wasn’t always afraid of it. I used to love watching the flashes during rare Oregon thunderstorms. This changed when I lived in Tanzania and my house was struck by a bolt when I was inside. When lightning hits that near to you, it is an explosion of blinding white light and deafening sound. It’s terrifying. You hear a woman screaming and then suddenly realize that it’s you. As we were sloshing around, Carrie and I saw a flash of lightning, and I counted to see how far away it was. “One…two…thr-” KABOOOOM! Less than a kilometer away. And here we are, standing in a pool of water.

Carrie saw the fear in my eyes as I told her how near it had struck and that I thought we might be in danger. Rather than taking care of the flood, I suggested that we climb up and sit on our beds until the lightning moved further away. From her reaction, she didn’t think it was as imminent a threat as, say, a spitting snake. Nonetheless, five minutes later we were perched on our respective beds, trying to laugh about the situation while we waited. It felt like a slumber party, just with moderately fewer pillow fights.

Eventually, the thunder abated and we got back to business. My mom taught me to handle the cause before treating the symptoms, so Carrie and I hunted for the source of the flooding water. It didn’t take long – following the swift current backwards, we came to the house’s big metal doors. Despite the valiant efforts of the rubber flaps under the doors, the water attacked each miniscule gap and flowed in unabated. I guess the doors weren’t designed to hold back a flood. Unless I could figure out a way to entreat the clouds to hold back their rain, we weren’t going to be able to handle the cause. Plan B…

Jules had built the house with drains in the floor in several locations. I remembered seeing Boniface scooping the gunk out of one with his finger several days prior (it was foul, trust me). Maybe the drains were plugged? So I went drain noodling, wiggling my fingers through the muck and grime in search of the plastic plugs. Upon finding them, I would latch down and yank, popping the plugs out and creating water vortexes. After removing three, Carrie and I watched the water level slowly drop – the worst was over.

As the water receded, it revealed a layer of brown silt coating the entire floor. There is a pond near our house which contains a number of frogs and other semi-aquatic denizens, and I could imagine them eagerly taking up residence in our newly swampified house. So, slip-sliding around in our rubber shoes, Carrie and I began to use squeegees to herd the mud towards the drains. True to form, Mike got up and helped out, alternating between documenting and cleaning. Chadd rolled over in his sleep.

Slowly winning the battle against the mud

We put in an hour of mud-herding before the house reached a state of relative cleanliness. I have to say, I was impressed with our efforts, considering that at this point it was around 3am. The storm had continued to lessen during our squeegee attack and the water entering the house had slowed to a trickle. As the situation resolved itself, the adrenaline that accompanied such a dramatic event began to wane, and we headed to bed.

If not for the damage to Carrie’s computer, I would have said that this was one of my favorite nights so far in Rwanda. It was ridiculous experience – so out of the ordinary, even for Africa – and one that we all shared (more or less…Chadd). I’d like to think that it will be one of those nights that we’ll look back on together with laughter.

CHADD’S STORY

KNOCK! “Chadd don’t get up!” It was one of those knocks that has less to do with preserving your privacy than with announcing an abrupt entrance.

Lights flipping on immediately accompanied my intruder’s rude entry.

Hunched over a short squeegee, eyes wide, Rob informed me the house was flooding. I looked at the floor. Well I’ll be a son-of-a-er-gun – flooding indeed.

Rob quickly suggested I unplug my computer. I promptly followed his sage advice and packed the computer into my backpack, which became my de facto go-bag in the event we had to bolt. I put my boots on my end table, set my flip-flops on the one dry part of my floor and decided to film a little bit of the “inundation.” I could hear Rob, son of a fireman, doing his Eagle Scout thing throughout the guest house.

Maybe it was the tip-tap of raindrops on the roof (ok, it was more like a surge Niagara would aspire to), but I suddenly felt the urge to use the restroom. So I donned my trusty flip-flops and did my thing. Standing there, I heard Rob’s disembodied voice call from the other room: “Hey Chadd, the thunder’s pretty close, you should probably get off the floor.” Great, this is exactly how I want to go out. Fully aware that Rob has a thing about lightning, I figured it was probably not that big a deal, but I still returned to my bed. Note to Eagle Scouts: The idea is not to scare the s*** out of the people you’re saving with tales of natural execution by electric charge.

As the thunderclaps began to consistently detonate about 4-5 seconds after their corresponding lightning strikes, I knew we had dodged the proverbial bullet.

As I heard Rob stir once more, I called out to see if he needed any help. “No,” came the reply. A moment or two later, now possessed of the video camera himself, our trusty Eagle Scout entered my room. Relatively secure in the knowledge that if the water rose to drowning level someone would remember to wake me, I killed the lights, rolled over and went back to sleep, thwarting Rob’s directorial debut.

MIKE’S STORY

Oh, how the rain came down! It rains in Kigali almost daily but nothing like this. This tropical rain was falling in sets of blistering long waves averaging 1 to 2 minutes in length.

I had laid down to bed at 11PM and still found my self stirring an hour later. The rain was so loud and violent that I could feel it in my chest, creating a vicious cerebral cycle. I knew that I needed sleep to keep fresh for the following day, but the more I turned over, the more nervous I became about not getting a good night’s rest; this, of course, made it that much harder to fall asleep.

“TAK! TAK! TAK!” What the… “TAK! TAK! TAK!” Aw, no. How am I going to get to sleep now? There were frantic voices just outside my window speaking in Kinyarwanda only to be interrupted by a hammering sound splitting the air and forcing my head to cower forward as if someone was uninvitingly patting the crown. “TAK!…hamajukura bujando kumra mukozi…TAK!” I slammed my eyes and ears shut determined to drown out the ruckus and drift off to sleep.

“Tat, tat, tat…Mike?” I opened my eyes just enough to let the blue haze of night enter and realize that I had actually fallen asleep. I hope no one is calling me. I faded back to sleep.

“TAT, TAT, TAT…Mike!” The pain of my thoughts forced me to let out a huge sigh into the depths of my pillow. If only it had been a ghost or an angel that I could have ignored, but this time I knew someone was entering my room after having delivered a courtesy knock.

“Mike, Mike. Sorry…you awake?” It was Caroline. With a helplessness in her voice, her head peeked around the corner looking wet and disheveled.

“Yeah…” I didn’t want to say too much. I was trying to keep the growing feeling of irritation from reaching my voice.

“My room is flooded. There is water everywhere…I just need your squeegee.”

“What? Your room is wet? How much water?”

“Two inches! And there is mud everywhere. I left my computer on the ground and now it’s not working. Rob fell asleep with his on the ground, too. But his computer is ok.”

Aw, no. You have to be kidding me.  I hope she has it backed up…ahhh, probably not.

“Ok, I am coming. Wait a sec.” I threw the covers back and began pushing myself out of bed.

“No, no….just keep sleeping. No, really keep sleeping.”

Of course. A damsel in distress comes barreling into your room telling you that her entire room is flooded with thick red mud and you’re supposed to stay in bed!?!…

“We’re pushin’ the water out of the house.”

“OK, my squeegee is in the shower.”

“Yeah,…ok….I see it…Don’t worry Mike, just keep sleeping.”

“If you need me, let me know.”

Painful. All I want is a good night’s rest. How am I going to drive hard at work tomorrow if I’m so sleepy that I can’t think straight?

Sure, my team is potentially in need, but really? Do they really need me that much? It’s just water after all and Caroline said I could stay in bed.

My body thumps back into the bed from the one arm, prop-up technique I used while listening to Caroline. I know that they need my help.

Hell, let’s go.

I jump out of bed with my shorts and t-shirt already on. Slipping my feet into my Brazil-green Havaianas, I head out of the main house and dart across the driveway to the guesthouse ready to wage war against the water and mud.

As I reach the driveway separating the main house from the guesthouse, the rain beats down into my white t-shirt with large, voluptuous drops soaking my shoulders. Halfway across the driveway my feet plunged deep underwater. I can feel the current’s flow moving across my feet from right-to-left. The water is headed downhill towards the guesthouse and still trickling in through the front door.

Once inside, I hear the swishing of water in rhythmic succession. “Woosh…woosh…woosh.” The squeegees are at work.

I peer into the rooms of my three teammates. There is standing water covering the floors of the entire guesthouse with a half-inch of layer mud just beneath. The deep rustic colored mud fans out like the silt from a satellite photo of the Mississippi delta. Caroline and Rob are hard at work pushing large squeegees across the floor towards drains, and the drains furiously gulp the rusty waves lapping into their mouths.

There are no more squeegees. How can I help? I grab Caroline’s camera from her nightstand. Documentation!

Caroline belts out, “I think it’s out of battery.”

I ignore the comment and begin firing away. “FLASH” Caroline hard at work surrounded by water.

I lean my head and the camera into Rob’s room. “FLASH” Another photo documenting the occasion.

I whirl around 180 degrees and walk into Chadd’s room. His lights are out, but even in the darkness I can see the silhouette of his bulging sheets. Amazing. He’s still asleep. I aim the camera at him. “FLASH” Got him. Asleep in the middle of a disaster. Wish I could sleep like that. I turn around to survey more of the damage. “Click” Damn, out of battery.

“Caroline. You OK? How about I take that?”

I place her camera back on the bed stand and grab the squeegee from Caroline’s hand without much resistance. She leaves her room in silence. Despite her best efforts, the room is still covered in think mud and water. I push down on the handle of the squeegee and drive the blade through the water leaving behind a small path of white tile in the midst of a red river.

It would be another 45 minutes of work before I would return to my room and fall fast asleep. For the second time in a week, we had dodged a bullet….well almost. We’re still waiting for the resurrection of Caroline’s computer.