Rivers or Roads?

This photograph was taken about 4 weeks ago now by a friend from church. Whilst I wasn’t the photographer, I remember the day and the scenes well as it took me 2 hours to get into the office from Karen (without traffic, that same journey is about 20 minutes)! Torrents of water were pouring down the sides of the roads, and in many places, covering the roads as well. Actually, within a day or two, there was pretty well no tarmac on this particular stretch of road (a sign of rain or poor quality tarmac?!) – which in itself led to huge traffic delays for weeks after. And for pedestrians, life was very difficult. Despite the huge number of pedestrians here, pavements (sidewalks) are rare, so during the rainy season, pedestrians are picking their way carefully through thick sticky mud, or trying to avoid being swept away (as shown here).
The roads have certainly suffered. Potholes abound around Nairobi, some of them taking more than half the width of the road, and deep enough to do damage if you drove into them without realising it.

We’d been in a season of drought for a long, long time, but since about November, there has been quite an incredible amount of rain. Everywhere has stayed amazingly green – this has certainly been the longest period of ‘green-ness’ that I’ve known in my 7 years here. Drought isn't fun, and the consequences can be very serious indeed. So, despite the mud and potholes, we are all very thankful for the rain.