Rain...

For the first time in 48 hours, it has finally stopped raining.... We’ve had 20.5 inches (over half a metre) of rain in that time. And the monsoon is supposed to have already finished!

For us it's not a big deal - it means we had to walk through ankle deep water to get to our cottage, check more carefully for snakes and whip out blankets.

For villagers though, the makeshift bridge across the river (which had only been up for the last couple of weeks), has been washed away requiring a 30 minute (by car) detour. For some of the villagers who had cut their rice in the past week and left it out to dry, the rains will have destroyed their entire harvest. It must be so devastating to those who now won't be able to feed their family. The last time there was a big rain, the village across the road flooded, and the orphanange helped out with food supplies for the villagers.

The school here at the orphanage floods and after the first day of rain one of the teachers mentioned to me that her feet were frozen and wrinkled after teaching in a wet classroom, and yesterday school was cancelled as the classrooms were flooded. The 6 Tasmanian visitors were a great help keeping the kids occupied. For the orphanage farm, the small amount of rice we had already cut is now spoilt but the remaining crop is still OK as long as the rain stops and it can dry out this week.

It really makes you think differently when you can see how a thing like rain can affect people so drastically. I have previously thought of rain as a minor inconvenience but I might just have to change my viewpoint.