The gods heard me and pissed on my city

Saying, “It rains and it stops,” three times last night must have tickled the gods and they sneezed today.

Last night the rain came down heavy and didn’t stop until 11am this morning. By the time I had to leave for school, the road outside was over my knees with water. I saw cars coming up the street and the water was running over their headlights. It looked fun so I put on my waterproofs and stepped outside. First mistake. “Yuh need fuh get sum lang boots bai.” Yes wellies would be amazing but all I had was trainers and wet socks so they would have to do. My tactic for riding was having my feet on the handlebars and over-revving my way down the river in first gear. It worked until I got to the middle of Middle Street, the engine conked out and I had to put my foot, no wait, my leg down in the water.

School was a strange place today. The minister of education announced that all public schools would be closed. By this time a few students and most of the teachers had turned up. During first lesson, school decided to cancel the day’s exams and students were allowed to go home if they wanted. I ended up teaching a half-filled AS Level class in the morning and a Form 5 chemistry revision class in the afternoon. I also demo-ed a lessons on seasons with them that I want Form 3 to do tomorrow:

The rain is such a strange thing in Guyana. I remember the rainy days in Region One; the whole village would go to sleep and everything would feel so lazy and quiet. Unbelievably this happens in the capital city. School felt like a ghost town and everyone wanted to go home and sleep.

Currently, they are pumping water out of Oasis Café downstairs. The street outside now resembles a 7m wide river that you would be more likely to see in the English countryside on a fishing trip. The scene is as eerie as it is beautiful. Christmas lights from neighbouring buildings are casting long shimmering reflections over the water whilst crappos bellow out low, rumbling croaks. The crappos must really love it like this; normally I see their charred flattened bodies pasted to the road in the middle of the day.