monsoon floods

The hot season was exactly that – hot – and also very humid. Sweating on my mat under the fan at night and never getting enough sleep was pretty draining, especially after a hot days that made me more tired than usual.

Then, all of a sudden the monsoon rains poured down to sooth parched K-town, causing floods in many communities, including mine. There was just too much rain in a short amount of time and not adequate drainage for the gutter and canal levels to maintain their levels.

Anywhere from above the ankle to just below the knees, dirty water and seeping sewage surfaced floating trash like a stagnant pond with nowhere to go. The poorest families in our community got hit the worst. What’s new? They live closest to the railroad tracks. Between them and the tracks is a ditch, ever which they use makeshift toilets up a latter in little bamboo structures on stilts (similar to the infamous toilets you may have seen in Slumdog Millionaire). All the human waste from that ditch, along with all the slimy gutters in the area, flowed together, entering into the homes that were lower down and poorer.

Our room was fine, but the drains in some rooms in our building started overflowing and caused flooding. The same thing happened with our “number one” toilet drain, which we share with over twenty people, causing a pool of sewage and urine for two days. If it had come up an inch or two more, it would have contaminated our well outside our room. We were the fortunate ones.

Communities like ours are vulnerable to disease and hygiene issues during floods and monsoon season. It’s hard to get things dried out and mold has been growing like abstract art on our wall. We actually were hoping to put some art up! Each season, we’re learning, has its unique issues to deal with.

My roommate and I have been inconvenienced by the floods that lasted a couple of days. But it’s just so insignificant when compared to how it affects others around us. One friend in our building simply can’t work when it rains because his job requires printing on sari fabric and then hanging them outside to dry. He goes days with no pay if it rains a lot. People with small businesses who set up outside or roam the streets selling vegetables or fish lose tons of work because the lanes are too flooded and slow them down, or the rain is too sporadic for business to take place outside. Not easy when today’s profit is tomorrow’s food and when your product gets spoiled.

I’m thankful to be able to learn from inside my community just by being here. I get to see what my neighbors put up with each year, how that actually affects them, and I get to join them in some sort of solidarity, even though it isn’t costly for me. But I need to be careful to be aware of more than just the tangible struggles that are easily observable when things like flooding happen – specially the things that my Western perspective sees as the most important or dramatic. I want to see struggles, joys, values and perspectives more closely to the way my neighbors see them. I want to stand in their sandals, which I believe is all the more meaningful when their sandals are under water.