The Rabbit Hole

Some days I have the distinct feeling of being somewhere totally strange and unusual. It is unlike the reality that has been my life since Gusi came along.

In Africa people wait for the rainy season. They wait and wait and pray and pray that the rains will come. Their crops, and thus their livelihood, depend on it.

PapaGus, Gusi and I found ourselves on the other side of the coin--or rather inside the rabbit hole--last weekend. We took a taxi to a grocery store a few miles from our house. A few minutes after we started shopping it started to pour. I mean P-O-U-R down. Gusi was mesmerized; PapaGus was unfazed; I was bewildered. How long would this last? After what seemed like an eternity we decided that it was time to return to the house; the rains would not let up any time soon so we would have to brave the growing tide outside the shop. We were wise enough to buy some plastic flip-flops at the store in order to save our shoes from virtual ruin. We rolled up our pant legs and then proceeded to wade in ankle-deep water to our impatient taxi. The attendant at the grocery was kind enough to hold an umbrella over our heads while walking the six feet to the taxi, but still we got drenched. All I could think of was all the waste floating in that water, the water I was wading in unwillingly. How could these rains be a blessing when they had the potential to transmit so many diseases?

Today it still makes my stomach turn to think about it, but the reality is that urban planning does not exist in many developing countries so cities are left without sewage systems or proper drainage. When it rains, there's no where for the water to go so you end up with small floods in low-lying areas like at the grocery store. (I should have suspected something when I saw the sandbags at the entrance to the shop.)

I'm sure there were many happy farmers outside of Dakar that day. I, however, felt as if I were living a passage from Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

And so since I've come here, I might as well take a swig from that bottle that says DRINK ME and a bite of that cake that says EAT ME. It couldn't hurt. Could it?