Haiti's Kryptonite

Since I'm in the Caribbean (something I try to keep reminding myself), rain is not exactly an uncommon occurrence here.  Tonight was no exception, except it happened to be the biggest rain storm I've experienced since I arrived.  I knew it would be big because I saw the ominous clouds while I was outside reading One Last Roll of the Dice by Trita Parsi savoring the last bit of sunlight.

I've been wanting to capture the impact rain has on Haiti, so I readied my camera hoping to capture something worth filming.  Take a look:

Clearly I failed.  The only thing you can possibly take away from that video is how loud the rain is.  Fortunately Haiti did not let me down.  When I came back in and began searching for my USB cable to upload this, I something wet on the ground.  Sometimes the bathroom gets wet when it rains because the sealant does not do it's job, but this was not the bathroom.  It felt it on my bedroom floor.  I went into the bathroom and saw water violently bubbling up from the shower drain and shooting out the bottom of the shower (where the sealant should be).  Needless to say, I spent the next hour trying to mop up my ti lakay with a couple of towels and my friend and the property manager, Georges.  Fortunately my floor is tiled so water evaporates easily here.

While small, the flood was genuinely alarming for a few minutes; I had no idea when the rain would stop or what else was not sealed.  Fortunately we ended containing it pretty quickly and nothing was lost.  However, less affluent people (i.e. practically everyone) are really suffering.  Remember there are still many thousands of people living in tent cities.  Much of the permanent housing is built with porous concrete that degrades relatively quickly when exposed to the elements.  (According to our facilities manager, high-quality concrete lasts for about 50 years).  The lingering debris and ubiquitous litter clogs the roads and the potholes become small lakes that threaten engines.  Worst of all, some of the unimproved roads on the hilly terrain become torrid rivers that sweep cars away.  A colleague was swept off the road in his armor-clad SUV when the road collapsed, fell into a large ravine that filled-up with turbulent.  Imagine trying to open a 100+ lb. door with hundreds of gallons rushing by.  And that's just another day here.

I'm glad I just had to deal with a little flood.