and after...

The week after the flood has mainly been spent speculating on the weather - and to be fair, it has rained a fair amount. It is, after all, the rainy season. Because of the complex way weather works, with warm sea currents and all, Mozambique is quite liable to tropical storms. Mostly we are protected from the really vicious stuff by the land mass that is Madagascar. Last year, tropical cyclone Dando narrowly missed us, dumping huge quantities of water over the border in South Africa.
One would think that Maputo, as the capital, would have learned a lesson or two by now.
Not.
As the waters receded, it became clear how inadequate most of the drainage systems are. The large stormwater channel which runs beside the dirt road to school was completely clogged with rubbish and silt, which is why it overflowed with such spectacular success. Other run-off drains simply erm, ran off when the flow of water became too heavy.
Our company complex was spared any real flooding by a fairly effective drainage system. (Although the pool remains a swamp one week on.) As I said - one would think someone would be paying attention...
Our own small intrepid expat community has already made plans of how to drain water from the complex should it flood. Unfortunately for the street behind, part of the plan is to pump the water that way...But at least there's a plan!
As for the roads:
The tarred road past the fishmarket is now a dirt roadwith a fairly interesting collection of large holes, and the dirt road is now a collection of ruts. The immediate repair operation seems to consist of dumping large loads of building rubble into the larger holes. All very well if you are good at avoiding the large concrete blocks and pipes (run-off?) sticking up. Most people drive around the builder's rubble and so we now have a narrowed, very bumpy track which is sheer torture in a small car with no shocks. I have found that the best approach is to engage low gear and whizz (whump?) through as fast as the gear allows (a little bit of a screaming gear box is drowned out by the thud of the car as it contacts with the waves of the road). Unfortunately, the gung-ho save-the-kidneys approach can only be used when the road is quite empty. For some unfathomable reason, most of the traffic drives really slowly on that particular stretch.
As for my close encounter with the manhole: turns out I was really lucky. As the water receded, a large sheet of loose corrugated iron appeared at one end of the manhole. I might very easily have shredded myself. Wet and muddy seems a lucky escape.