Ah, so this is the rainy season.

A word about the seasons in Sierra Leone:

There are two or three, depending on who you ask. The dry season and the rainy season. Some charitably divide the dry season into the Harmattan - when a "cool breeze can blow" from the Sahara - and the Hot season (c.f. 1985 Peace Corps Krio language manual). But for most, the obvious change is the arrival of torrential rains and flash floods, wherein roads become rivers and wash away the continuously constructed, "help yourself" patchwork of stones and dirt that made them bearable in the dry season. Technically, the rainy season is from May to September, but according to experienced locals and the indomitable wisdom of google, most of the rain falls in July and August.

A recent conversation with a colleague about whether the US had a rainy season plus a 24th hour of relatively heavy rain inspires this post.

Usai I kohmoht (where I am from/literally, 'where I come out'): Seattle
Average rainfall in the Rainy City: 36"

Usai I de (where I am): Freetown
Average rainfall in the capital city: 150-160"

Can I just underscore that this is no less than twelve and a half feet? Most of which falls over the course of 60 days (the two months that happen to also consitute from now until I leave). Also mentioned in the combined wisdom of google+BBC is an uncomfortably low average of two to three hours of sunshine per day during the rainy season. A very fine climate overview of West Africa: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/country_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT000540 And Seattle: http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/seattle/weather.htm

Rain and the cooler temperatures a deluge can bring are quite lovely in isolation. The pounding on zinc roofs lulls most of the country to sleep midday and the streets jammed with vendors tend to clear out as people scurry to small corners of cover, comfort, and deafening (from the rain) quietude (from the impenetrability of other noises). Despite these small graces, the reality is that life gets more difficult for everyone in direct relation to their level of poverty.

Starting small, we can observe that laundry, which like most places in the world, is dried in the sun in Sierra Leone, can hardly dry during the few sunbreaks the gods afford in July and August. At a slightly larger scale, all earthly possessions -already scarce enough for most of the country- and basic structures, from my flatmate's fairly 'high-end' apartment to my colleagues' zinc-walled rooms insulated by cardboard boxes and wallpapered with magazines, are permeated by mold. (I spent an hour this morning ironing mold out of clothes that sat untended for a just a week in my wardrobe.) Then there's the havoc flash flooding and a lack of adequate drainage systems wreaks in a country teetering its way up from the bottom of the Human Development Index. As mentioned above, most streets, aside from the government's outsourced highways, are maintained by initiative-taking neighbours who hand-fill gaping potholes with hand-made gravel and dirt. But, the lack of drainage due to clogged and infrequent gutters (there's no comprehensive sewage system to speak of) leads to rivers of run-off that quickly wash away even the professionally graded roads. Gusting storms blow apart self-constructed rooves and rickety powerlines pop and burst due to some formulation of rain, cascading electrical charges, and rust. The myth of Sisyphus comes to mind.

And unsurprisingly, no one is hit harder than the poor. Slums, "informal settlements" if politeness is your cup of tea, are built on landfills at the water's edge, literally clinging to the city against the force of the tides and along ravines and gullies that channel run-off from the surrounding peninsula mountains out to sea. As water courses through these natural passages, overburdened by the loss of soil from deforestation and over-population of unplanned urban-ity, people's homes fill with water at best, and are washed away or toppled by landslides at worst. The marginalised inhabitants of slums are hardly ignorant of the risks posed by the ground beneath their feet and the roof over their heads. As a friend who lives in a pan bodi (zinc-walled) room at the shell and trash strewn water's edge told me yesterday, he decided to rent the room only after the previous tenant reported no flooding problems -from tides or rains- in six years. Those without his steady employment or an equivalent source of income may be hard-pressed for such discretion in an undersupplied housing market.

Open sewers and the fact that toilet means latrine in all but the wealthiest compounds present persistent public health problems in addition to the housing threat. The compound in which I have been spending most of my days recently has no toilet (read latrine) and an open room-sized pit reveals where the full one used to stand. When the rain comes, the small gutter along the house overflows and the path gushes with dirty water. Water rushes through the streets with equal abandon and throughout the country (particularly in rural areas) poorly constructed latrines runneth over or disintegrate, polluting community water supplies.

Thus, for all the idyll heavy rains can provide, they also guarantee spikes in malaria infections (standing water breeds mosquitos) and cholera, dysentery, and other diseases from contaminated water and lack of adequate sanitation.

While I wish I'd spent more days at the beach, look with trepidation toward my next road trip, and bemoan the rampant mold, I count my blessings that these are my problems. If anyone is looking for high-impact development work, it's water and sanitation.

**Photos taken during the dry season in an urban poverty risk assessment by Concern Worldwide**