Rainy Days and "Sand" Days . . .

Dear Family and Friends:

We have talked for a while about the wonderful rain that we receive here. I thought I would put a few pictures on the blog to show you what happens here when it rains.

The picture below is of what is generally a small creek that people have gardens planted next to. You can see on this particular day that the gardens are getting very well watered.

Driving along some of the streets. This particular rain storm occurred on Sunday, August 30. There was MUCH rain. These pictures were taken by the other missionary couple here. They were on their way to the East side of the city. We were on the west side and were equally wet. We had to drive throw water that was up to the bumper of the truck (4-wheel drive pickup). We were one of the few vehicles that went through it--probably not the wisest but there wasn't another way through.

Because Freetown is built on hills, all the water runs down to the low spots. It is amazing to watch the water cascade over the sides of the hills or where the people have tried to divert the water into drainage ditches. We are told that September will bring more rain. People are telling us that this year has had a lot more rain than normal. The bad part about it is that it has brought mold and mildew to everything. If you leave a pair of shoes in the closet, they will start to have mold on them. Elder Jones hung up his suit pants under his suit coat when he first arrived in Sierra Leone. He checked them the other day and there was some mold growing on the pants pockets. We are now keeping an eye on things a little better.



One of the unique things that Elder Jones saw one day was where they fill up the trucks that haul sand. The big trucks go down to the beach, are filled by hand (shovelful by shovelful--the workers throw the sand up into the bed of the truck) and then they haul it to a construction location for the workers to make concrete blocks to build with. At the beach location there were around 18 trucks one day with 10-20 workers per truck throwing the sand into the back of the truck. The truck below just pulled out into the water when it was done being filled.