A Year of Floods

I left off the last post when the rain started back in August. It's been an interesting year as far as weather goes. Usually April is the hottest and pretty much unbearable because it's so hot. This year we didn't even turn on the air conditioner until the end of May. For those of you who know how hot-natured I am, you'll know it must have been really comfortable here.

Then when rainy season started we had our first real flood in our village. Here we don't have to worry so much about the river level in the city, but we do get the overflow from some of the reservoirs, and if something breaks we'll get some water. Something must have happened this year because our neighbors said it was the worst they had seen in over 10 years.


Our neighborhood took the flooding all in stride. We saw people pulling the kids around in plastic wash tubs, and some even had boats.
This is the view of our front yard and the street from upstairs.
Rusty continued going to the schools and teaching during this time. We kept watching the water levels, and everyday we said the same thing--"It's not going to get any worse than this." Finally on Wednesday, I believe, the neighbor offered to order us some sandbags. She was going to be ordering quite a few, and she said we could get some too. I called Rusty, and he said if I thought we needed them to go ahead and get them. By this point we just didn't want the water coming into the house. It was a good thing we got them because from this point the water did rise a bit more to the top of the step on the carport that you see here but not all the way to the door.

The truck refused to bring the sandbags all the way to our house for fear of messing up their truck, so a neighbor brought them to us in the back of their pickup truck. If you're going to go through a flood it's good to have helpful neighbors.

I also need to add that it was a good idea that Rusty went ahead and taught at the schools. It was a good witness to the teachers he worked with on those days that we were taking the flooding in stride as well. You don't always get to know the results of those little decisions you make to go ahead and be faithful. It says a lot to others about your faith.

There was a steady stream of vehicles coming down our street and going all through the neighborhood. Of course every time someone passed our house, it caused waves to roll in splashing against the doors. I think getting the sandbags was a good call.
Rusty had some chest waders so he was able to meet with the community in the flooded streets of our very own little Venice. I felt kind of out of place talking to the neighbors from the front porch, but I really didn't want to be in the water.

We watched the neighborhood kids going up and down the streets all evening long. They were having a blast!

I think this is a picture of the discussion of the cause of the flooding. Everyone is saying we've never seen it like this in this neighborhood, and the old-timers are saying it has been quite a few years since this has happened.

My favorite pictures are the men pulling the nicely dressed women through in the boats, but this cute little boy will work well too! We usually have our water delivered to the house, but they weren't able to deliver during the flood. It's a good idea to always keep a supply of drinking water on hand.
We were a little worried about our sewer. We stopped washing clothes and using the inside water and drains as much as possible since we didn't know how long this was going to last.
All in all the flooding wasn't too bad, and everyone had fun during this "holiday." The Thai people really seem to fare well in what we would be deemed a stressful situation, and how we deal with them is important as well. I need some pink chest waders next time...it's just not as much fun from the porch when your students are yelling, "Teacher come play with us!"