Harmattan in Sydney and Ouaga?

From photos I've seen of the recent dust storm in Sydney it looks very much like the Harmattan storms which we have several times a year here (usually November). If you're lucky enough to be inside you rush around battening down the hatches (too bad about the metal louvres in the kitchen and bathroom which don't exactly meet each other to close) and try to breathe through the dust that still makes it through. If you're on the road it's like pea soup fog you drive gingerly through to avoid crashing into something or someone, but scratches paintwork, fills your car fan, and overwhelms the motorbike riders (most common form of transport here) with dust in their hair, mouth, nose.... who, often as not, stop in the middle of the road without lights on to cope with that while you're following behind, which brings me back to not crashing, an occupation which takes a lot of my concentration every day here. When it's not storming during the season dust just hangs in the air, which at twilight and sunset also looks like a brown fog. If you take photos with a flash at night it bounces off the dust particles, with little blossoms of light covering what you wanted to capture behind them.

It's been hot and dry the last few days and we may be getting Harmattan early which means an extremely short (though wet) rainy season since it started late too, a potential disaster for local crops. I was lucky to miss a very long hot season by being in Australia earlier in the year, but it has heated up enough already for the 'mini-hot season' and leaves are already falling off my vines and trees with the dryness and heat - just weeks after the Ouaga flood!! I close up the whole house when I go out just in case: rather a hot house to come back to than one covered in dust and objects blown all over the place. Some of the plants are loving the sun, however, and thriving as long as we keep feeding them water. I'll have my first papayas, we have another bumper crop of cinnamon apples (similar to custard apples), but the passionfruit is specializing in luxurious leaves and extremely little fruit. No show on the guavas, too. I've branched out into flowering plants, too, with my friend Janet donating some cuttings of things which worked well in her garden, a stately "Rose de Sahel" from Jane that hasn't stopped flowering since she left, and some cheap purchases to make up the change where I bought cement pots. I'm waiting on seeds from home to try some more herbs and small veg.

Marathon continues

Well, the first of my marathon weeks is over:

Monday morning I taught 1.5 hrs World Awareness/Geography with a section on internet research on countries and people groups, which the students will need for some of their assignments in other subjects.

Monday evening was the first 2.5 hrs session for IBEO, the evening Bible School. I began the series on Strategic Thinking. First things first, though, the distribution of traditional “been on voyage, bring back presents”. I had photos printed for them of times IBEO students had spent together, and MP3 players I’d picked up on sale at home that were a big hit.

Tuesday afternoon we had our IMS committee meeting – again with some knotty issues like how many hours or days students could miss class and still get their diploma which weren’t resolved in the limited time we had available.

Wednesday morning I led chapel

Wednesday evening was the usual weekly SIM prayer meeting

Thursday evening was the second 2.5hrs session of IBEO, with homework already to hand in so I let them off lightly with reading for next Monday.

Friday morning I taught Anthropology for 4hrs, letting them off early at 12.40 since they were looking so tired, and for those interested (nearly everyone) offered videos of China which they were reluctant then to turn off at 1.15, already 15 minutes late for lunch. I may reschedule my class so that we finish with videos like that when they’re tired instead of putting them just after morning break time.

Friday evening I went back to IMS to help transport students for a meal at Grays house, brought them back there once finished, and returned home.

Recovering from, and preparing for all these sessions in between time has been quite draining. Rains are easing up now so it’s getting hot again, which isn’t making for easy sleep at night. I have one more week like that to go, when I’ll be able to cut out the Wed morning chapel but replace it with the monthly full-morning SIM prayer meeting … Appreciate your prayers for energy and quick preparation.

IMS 2009-10 year opens officially

After a week of orientation and computer courses, followed by an introductory week-long missions course, last Monday IMS had it's first week of 'normal' classes, started by an opening chapel service. A guest speaker (a Fulani missionary) gave the address, SIM Burkina director welcomed the students from 6 countries to Burkina, students got their 'missions library', we chatted and had a Coke and took photos, ... then they started classes.

I teach Geography/World intercession and Anthopology this term, as well as one evening Bible college class and the usual regular admin crises with electricity blackouts and computer problems being key distractions taking up hours per day at the moment.

One week later...

The same street as in the photo below, one week on: in the top left side you'll see several houses missing, furniture and other goods scattered around, and people searching in the wreckage for their belongings. Thankfully, we have had almost no rain since that day so there has been time for people to work on replacing some walls, repairing cracks in houses and shoring up places that almost fell. The government started repairs on the dam nearby that had overflowed that same night, workers there 24 hours a day.

News tonight showed that the main electrical station that was flooded is also back in business, with workers also working constantly since the flood taking apart and cleaning out muck from all the parts that were under water. Some work still to be done there, as reflected by the occasional power cuts, but a good start.

SIM Director Alan Dixon and church leaders visited people who lost their homes staying in temporary shelters like schools and were able to help some who had nothing to sleep with by donating mats, blankets and other necessities. They will be examining other cases as they are found. The government has called on all those who wish to help to meet tomorrow (Monday) to give donations and co-ordinate efforts.

For those interested in helping, gifts can be directed to any SIM office and designated to the new project Ouagadougou Flood Relief BF 93918.

Video - my street in the big rain

Flood details

From SIM Burkina Director...

It seems that the city of Ouagadougou just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. On September 1, a strong tropical storm system stalled over Ouagadougou. It started to rain about 4:30 in the morning, a nice gentle rain for over an hour. About 6:00, the time we usually get out of bed, the downpour started and continued off and on till about 4:00 in the afternoon. The metrological service registered 97 mm (about 4 inches) of rain between 7:00 and 8:00 AM, an incredible downpour. The rainfall recorded by 4:00 PM was 263 mm (over 10 inches) for the day. This is the highest one day rainfall in recorded history in Burkina Faso. On August 31,1914, 246 mm were recorded in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second largest city. The previous highest one-day recorded rainfall for Ouagadougou was 120 mm in 1953. There was likely some variation throughout the city which may account for varied reports. Ouaga has several low areas and water courses with damage particularly significant in those areas.

Just after noon Alison and I went to Paspanga, an area of town about 4 km from our house, to help out the family of a church member there, carrying two of his children and some of their personal effects back to the SIM compound. Water was rising in his yard but had not yet entered his house. Water had backed up about 6 city blocks at that point. We were able to wade through water to a nearby office building under construction where we went up to the fifth floor to survey the damage. A widespread area was flooded and the EE-SIM church, several blocks away, was under about 8 feet of water. It is located just one block from the floodway, downstream from one of Ouagadougou’s dams, which itself was under two feet of water. This is one of the areas where many houses fell. We heard one fall quite close by while we were loading up the car for this family. This is one of the rare times that we have seen hundreds of people in the streets in the pouring rain.

Electricity was cut by mid-morning as the main diesel generating station located in Paspanga flooded. Our power came back on at 8 PM, for many it was the next day, but some are still without power. The water treatment plant at Paspanga was also flooded and shut down. This has resulted in no water in some areas of the city and very low pressure in others. The official word from ONEA (the government water service) is that they are having difficulties but do have adequate reserves.

The main hospital, Yalgado, is not far from the same dam. Its back wall came down and several of the buildings of the hospital compound were flooded. Many patients were evacuated to other hospitals in town. Clean-up is underway but damage, particularly to equipment, is extensive. One of the local newspapers was flooded and only produced a limited edition yesterday with mostly photos of destruction throughout the city.

The city is much calmer this morning and the flood waters have mostly receded. The government estimates that there are about 150,000 people whose homes are no longer habitable- either completely or partially destroyed. About 110,000 of these people have taken shelter in schools and are receiving some emergency aid through government channels. They report only five deaths but many still unaccounted for. If this flood had happened during nighttime hours it would certainly have resulted in a much greater catastrophe in terms of loss of life.

The SIM Ouaga team has set up a fund to begin helping people in need. For now it is initial emergency aid but within a few days I expect we will be looking at helping with housing and other needs, particularly for those in SIM-related churches and their neighbors. Any help that can be directed our way will be appreciated. Gifts can be made through any SIM office to project BF General 81250, designated for Ouagadougou Flood Relief. It's going to take a long time for this to go away.

There was no serious damage for SIMBF missionaries, although one had a couple of inches of water throughout his house- water running in from the street. A wall fell down at another's house, resulting in minor damage to two vehicles. Several of our Burkinabe staff had some damage to their homes and one’s car was engulfed in water after getting caught in the flood-waters while attempting to get to work. We are thankful for God’s protection and pray that those much less fortunate will get the help they need.

Update on flooding

Details are finally coming out about the amazingly few people missing and harmed in yesterday's flooding: the major problem seems to be 150 000 people whose homes were knocked down or melted by the floods (lots of newly-settled areas with just mudbrick), and many small businesses lost stock destroyed by metres of water. Many are sheltered in schools which will be needed soon when the academic year restarts. I've linked a few photos to my Facebook profile.

Philippe's new mudbrick shelter on the unsurveyed land he's been buying withstood a wall of water (he found out he's located in a major drainage path from the hill behind) and only leaked inside at foundation level since his typhoid last week prevented him doing a planned layer of protective cement. Leah's place was OK, but she said her neighbour (with whom they share a garden wall) was waist-deep inside and the water started coming their way so she dammed up the hole to keep the water the neighbour's side! Our cook at IMS, Esther, had water to knee level, lost family documents, a bedroom and outside kitchen.

Paspanga EE/SIM church was inundated up to roof level. Only one person was living in the pastor's house and he was able to save a few church items.

We the SIM Ouaga missionaries discussed our response tonight at prayer meeting : it's the time of year all our acquaintances are asking for loans for school fees, now there will be rebuilding/restocking needs as well so we are going to pool our response to local contacts to be distributed in consulation with church people to avoid over-duplication of some and missing out others.

I feel blessed that I was just moving furniture and wringing out floor cloths for the leaks down nearly every wall in contact with the outside and was encouraged to stay home from work and avoid the roads. Our ditches dug in the past for rainfall runoff worked well and hours after the rain stopped the earth was visible again.(that sounded a bit Noah-like!).

For more info:

BBC's coverage - identical to many websites http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8235040.stm

Olivia, a short-termer has photos on her blog http://oliviainafrica.wordpress.com/ and Christine, a short-term teacher here gives a good description on http://web.me.com/baeders/The_Baeders/Blog/Entries/2009/9/2_Effects_of_the_Flood.html.

Flooding in Ouaga

The electricity has just come back on at 8pm after more than 12hours off, in time for the news, and it’s full of scenes of floods: today more than 264mm rain in Ouaga in the last 24h (highest since 1922), and scenes of people crossing roads up to their necks in water dragging suitcases, knee-deep pushing motorbikes in the center of town on the way to work, people sitting in puddles with piles of furniture outside of mudbrick houses now just scattered mud bricks, 4WDs thrown on top of a sedan’s roof barely visible through the water …

I waited the heavy steady rain out until 8am and tried to leave for IMS when it was still raining … but didn’t even complete the turn out of the street when I saw the car in the ‘river’ at the crossroads bogged up to the top of its tyres. I rang work, heard the roads there were still running, reminded them to put the electricity wiring up off the floor and then thought to look at mine … and found every room of the house except the kitchen with puddles of water that I spent clearing up for the next few hours as they kept being fed by the leaks. Some came down the walls, including in the wardrobe so all my shoes and some dresses were wet.

Within a half hour Joel had rung and said that with his 4WD he had passed many cars trapped by water on the main roads, no staff had made it through and said he’d cancelled classes for the day. Later in the morning two calls came from SIM asking how I was – my leaks were minor stuff compared to what was happening in town. When the rain wasn’t as strong I put on a raincoat, went across the road and they were pushing out water of the little shop, which had come up about 1ft into the shop and drowned the freezer motor (lucky the electricity was out). The guys gathered there said the radio had called for volunteers to come to the hospital to help the army evacuate patients to the other local hospitals since it was flooded too.

I rang Leah and told her not to bother coming in. Philippe my night guard had also not dared to leave with the roads flooded, especially since he’s recovering from typhoid fever and spent the day in the storeroom with my folded bed, stove and camping cooking stuff. I appreciated the work we’d been doing in the garden to clear dead wood and ensure a clear passage of water out of the compound which meant not too much stuff thrown down by the wind (passionfruit vines at the back were falling down but Philippe managed them soon) and as the rain started to slow in the afternoon the earth and grass was soon visible again.

The authorities are urging people not to go to work if it means crossing watery areas that are unknown underneath, and are opening schools and admin buildings for those flooded out. I’ll be ringing IMS before going tomorrow!

The weather man said it could happen again …