Right through the wet season, the clouds roll in over the hilltops over Dare, sometimes rolling on for a downpour and other times, lingering then rolling back again later in the afternoon.

Then that seems to stop, the dust starts rising and you feel that the wet has ended.  I thought that 2 weeks ago.  Then today, Hughey dumps what seemed like the biggest dump of the year.  Down the street, several trees lost huge branches over the roads and the locals were chopping them up straight away.  A huge lightning burst followed by instantaneous thunder suggested a local lightning strike to me.

Outside the front gate and back door was its usual temporary lake.  The roof leaked as usual, water came in under the doors and one window leaked badly.

And as usual, the local kids were out playing the rain, lying in puddles and generally doing exactly the opposite of what I was told to do as a kid.  With me it was “now don’t you go down and play in the canal” – I did.

I suspect that it is the reverse here : “now go out and play in the rain”.  And they do.

It can not be great fun living in the IDP camps which still exist.  The camps tend to have fallen off most people’s radar now but if I had to guess, numbers have probably only dropped by 1/3 at the most.  They are just not set up to handle living in a few inches of water.