31 March 2015

Rain. not a drizzle but pouring rain

Those readers ( should I remove the s) from west coast USA have to deal with rain.  Arusha has similar total amount of rain as Seattle,  however Seattle it drizzles 50% of the time.  Arusha it is completely dry for long periods, then when it rains it pours for 1-2 hours and then it is dry the rest of the day.  Rarely we get a drizzle all day.  In short Arusha gets most of its rain in 20 rains lasting a few hours each.

Which means your chances of getting caught in the twenty downpours per year are slim.

Today I should of left for work at 7 am and ridden dry.  I messed around and as I was thinking of going it poured.

I will post in the building blog about my thoughts while looking at my rainwater management system, as I spent 15 minutes seeing what was happening in my compound,  then it let up to just light rain so I took off.

I wear a bill-less cap and full rain suit when it is raining more than a drizzle.  I take the bill off a cap as it interferes with my mirror.  I now feel naked without a mirror.

It started to rain more as i rode towards center of town.

There are hardly any pedestrians on the road, they are hiding under any building overhang they can find and motorcycles are about 1/10 less and even cars seem fewer.  I remain dry but my face and my feet.  I need to do something about the feet as the water pours down my legs into my leather dress shoes.    On my face as my daughter agrees it feels good on the face.

I can tell people think :
- I am crazy
-poor guy
-why does he have a side mirror on his helmet
- that i am miserable and wet.

I only got wet on my feet an a few spots wear the raincoat wasn't working.

There was water all over but my fenders work good.  Ditches were either half full or overflowing.  Water was pouring down most of the roads coming from the mountain.

My thought was what a waste of all this water, it should be stored or going into the soil where it fell, but that is an opinion not shared by many.  Rain water is seen as a material to get rid of .  My neighbour has a 7 bedroom house, on the 1/4 acre or so plot the house takes a fair portion   and then half is paving stones that send all the rain water and car washing water out onto the road.  Erik being who he is diverts it into a ditch with holes around the garden and it sinks in.  today maybe it reached the last hole.

It was raining enough that getting the phone out for a picture or making a note, so as usual all my great thought disappear as I enter the business environment.

As i pass security check i joke with Security officer " is it safe to enter the building"  he answers "yes if you know how to swim"  It has stopped raining but the plaza is half covered in an inch of precious water slowly making its way to drainage and eventually swollen rivers.

29 March 2015

Teenagers

We planned a father-daughter ride but it was raining at sunrise so we took it easy and then called friends and 3 teenage boys joined us.


we were short on time and ran into dark clouds and rain so headed to Ilboru and visited Martin a retiree who worked for me.