Rainy Season

As my friend Firoz told me this morning in his broken English, “it has been raining cats and dogs.” Judging by the constant hum generated by the coconut sized drops of rain falling on our roof, I felt inclined to believe him. It wasn’t until I took the elevator downstairs that I realized what he could have actually meant: cats and dogs are swimming in the streets. After a night of such heavy rain the streets of Bijoy Nagar are submerged in almost 30cm of water, and it’s still coming down in sheets. The restaurant manager, who has taken to calling me in the morning if I don’t show up for my regular paratha breakfast at 9am, tells us that this part of town always floods like this because the sewers aren’t able to handle the volume. This is aggravated by the fact they’re probably running at only half capacity on the best of days because of all the garbage clogging up their pipes. I asked whether the restaurant was flooded earlier this summer given the fact that even now the water is only two steps away from becoming level with the ground floor of the hotel and restaurant, but apparently they stayed dry. Maybe the sewers succeed only at keeping the water below a certain depth until the rain stops, after which the flood waters recede quite quickly.

The new pictures I’ve posted (most to 'Bijoy Nagar' and one of Zia Int'l Airport to 'Dhaka') will give you an idea of what I’m talking about, although they're from this morning. Since then the water has gotten deeper during the day and the weather on the whole has taken a turn for the worse. I'm told that the areas surrounding the Buringaga river are completely flooded and can see that the water on our street is now even closer to our front door. The wind has been howling; it can be seen sweeping across the lake that was once our street and in the palm trees that now appear as flexible as elastic bands. No one's really concerned, though - it happens quite frequently this time of the year - and people seem to be comforted by the fact that we won't see this kind of rain for a long time once the month is over.

I should have posted this announcement on September 9th: Happy 91st Birthday, Grandpa. You’re still only a new kid on the block to us.