Work day...again today we worked on our various projects and as we worked on getting some viruses off the computers around the office there were two things that came to mind: 1. Everything seems to get done a lot more slowly here as it relates to any type of work and 2. The problems that we dealt with were similar to some of the problems in society here where sometimes the issue didn't look like a real big deal, but the further we got into the project(s) the deeper the problems seemed to be. We were able to make good progress on our projects today and everything seems to be on track to get done over the next few days before we head back.
Tonight there has been a pretty good amount of rain. It started at dinner time while we were eating and was really coming down hard. Seems like in the tropics there aren't just misty rains or sprinkle rains...when it rains...it rains hard. While we were eating we could hear it starting to rain and there was a porch area out the back door of the house we were in. The porch roof had been damaged in the earthquake and had a crack in it that was substantial enough that the water gathering on top of the porch (a balcony) started coming through the crack in the roof into the lower porch area. It was like a shower causing flooding in the lower room. Not much that we could do about it as the house is rented and it's the owners responsibility to take care of those types of issues, but they just really don't and haven't done much to take care of these types of issues. This is a pretty common problem right now as many people rent and pay their rent up front for the year. After the earthquake they have been left stuck with no place to live. In this case at least the rest of the house was pretty much ok, but this was a pretty substantial crack in the ceiling.
As we left dinner we heard there was a problem with water collecting on the tent over at the clinic and they needed some help getting it off to keep it from getting too heavy. The clinic is built over a driveway area and also includes an area off the driveway (in the dirt) where cots were on both pieces. The whole yard is pretty much flat and really no drainage was planned when the house was originally built, so with all the rain a 'lake' formed in the front yard that extended into the hospital area. The patients had been moved to higher ground, but it was still VERY wet throughout the entire area. We knocked the water off the tarps as best we could, but it is continuing to rain, so hopefully the water doesn't get too high. It made us think about the people in the tent cities that are spending the night in the rain and flooding ground. This is only the start of the rainy season with the worst still coming. What will these people do? The tarps help, but the ground is flat and puddles form fast and easily. With this much gathering water along with all the trash and poor sanitation it just seems ripe for disease.
There is a little boy at the clinic who's name is Emmanuelle and had some scars from being hurt in the earthquake, but despite all this was a fun little guy that always seemed happy. It's great to see him doing so well and he is supposed to get some additional plastic surgery done on his nose soon. He is a great little guy.
We walked back to our place after helping and had to walk through ankle to knee deep water. The streets had turned to rivers. All the trash that is in the streets is now floating.
As we were walking back we were concerned about dirty water we were wading through and when we got back we rinsed it all off with a shower while others out there tonight are trying to figure out how to keep their family dry in a 10 x 10 tent area. What do we do about all this? What would God have us do?
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