Let It Rain

We had an absolute gully washer on Saturday!  It started at about 11:00 a.m. and ended at around 2:00 p.m.  In that three hours I know we got at least 4" of rain because there was at least 3.5" sitting in a planter and I figure there had to be at least a half inch of water below the soil line, right?  I heard someone say he had been here three years and this was the most rain he had ever seen in that time. 

To give you a little glimpse of what it was like, I have a few photos.  

This is a school yard three hours after the rain stopped.  There is a small outlet at the corner of the concrete walls that was letting water out so it had already been draining for that long.

Then there's the open house I went to--I was told that at 2:00 (when the open house was scheduled to begin, this was a lake:

And this:

(More about the tent canopy another day--it's a whole other post)

Then, this morning I went out in search of avocados that had volunteered themselves for me (i. e., had fallen from the tree) when I saw something I was totally unprepared for!

You may recall a couple of the photos of my back yard:

 Today it looks like this:

A combination of the rain and some root damage took what appeared to be a sturdy and solid wall completely down.

The bad part is that the wall belongs to Julio (the owner of my apartment) and the worse news is that they don't have homeowners' insurance in Ecuador.  There is apparently insurance on the loan for the mortgage but not the building and grounds themselves.

I think everyone's going to be glad when the dry season rolls around any day now.