The Rains are Here...

The Rains Are Here
Forest Gump once said:
"One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

After a mainly hassle free introduction to Phnom Penh; I kept asking myself,
"Its the wet season? where is the rain?"
Well over the last couple of weeks it has well and truly ARRIVED!
Everyone has said that during wet season you can set your watch by the rain. Normally at 3pm on the dot the heavens open for about an hour and then it stops.
The first few weeks it hardly rained at all, it kept threatening too around the magic 3pm timeslot, but it never really eventuated. I was beginning to think it was all a big scam. As i sit in my classroom and write this post the rain is coming down as if someone burst a water main in the sky.
For the last few weeks the rain has been my constant companion, so much so that some days when i am at school i hardly even notice the thumping on the windows. The locals say that because of the lack of rain at the start of the season that now it can come at any time of the day. We have had lunchtime rain and nightime rain. The rain which should come between 3-4pm has been lasting all night, or maybe for 5 minutes when you choose to go out, or maybe it will come in afternoon when you want to leave school. The worst type of rain however is.....morning rain...rain when its time to go to work.
Last week i awoke to hear the rain bucketing down and thought to myself, its ok it only sounds like one of the short rain bursts. I couldnt have been more wrong. The minutes ticked down towards 7.15am and leaving time to ride to school. I had a phone call from the girls, who had already braved the ride, asking if i could bring them some dry clothes. After collecting the mercy package of dry clothes, I had to bite the bullet and i put on what i thought was a waterproof jacket and head to school.
Before i have even unlocked the front gate and got my bike out i was soaked through head to toe. So much for the waterproof jacket. I carefully negotiated my way through the lakes that had formed on our dead end street, firmly in the belief that if it kept raining, that our 3rd floor balcony would be the only place above sea level come the end of the day.
Finally making to Mao Tse Tung Blvd i was greeted by less traffic than i am used to which was some consolation. As i approached the lights at the intersection of Norodom i was greeted by mayhem. The rain had forced a power cut, and the traffic lights (although merely an aesthetic addition to Phnom Penh's roadways at the best of times) were out and disorder was prevailing. I zig zagged my way through oncoming and cross traffic, with my visibility next to nothing. I made it across the intersection and still ahead of me a 400m stretch of road, which had now become the latest rivulet of the Mekong River. I tried unsuccessfully to avoid the flumes of water being thrown up by the 4WD's, who were finally being used in a manner for which they were desinged. Pulling into the iCAN school car park, I had long forgotten the fact that i looked like a drowned rat, and had the biggest smile on my face.
I felt like a kid again, going out to play in the rain without worry.
The rains are here, and here to stay by the looks of it, oops i say that too soon. The rain has just stopped. I better make a run for it and leave school before it starts again.....