Well, well,
well. That moment of bliss didn’t
last very long. I’m glad I
appreciated it while it was there.
It continued
raining all through the night and this morning at about 5am I woke up from a
heavy downpour. When I got up my tent floor was already wet on the one side, the water seeping in from puddles that formed on the outside. A very unwelcome and by this
time, too familiar sight.
Well, it wasn’t
long before the river broke it’s banks and came flooding down. It rushed past and instead of
stabilising, kept on rising until flooded the cement braai in front of my tent. I was already packing things from my
tent back into the caravan. Eventually, the water from the rover rose so high,
it was inside my tent. So I had
water flooding me from a puddle on my left and from the river on my right. I started worrying that it might rise
even more and flood my whole caravan.
There was a point
when I took my camera and laptop and some clothes and other valuables to my car
for fear of losing everything. One
of those moments when you have little time to decide which material possessions
are most important to you… I was
close to desperately finding help to take down the tent and moving the
caravan. Just then someone came
and said that the river was going down again… What a relief!
In the meantime it
continued raining and the guys had some troubles with the marquee tent of the
wedding as well. Water gathered on
the roof and the whole thing was in danger of collapse with all the tables
(already set the previous day) and everything inside. Eventually they had to remove everything inside and take the
tent down. I thought there would
be no wedding this day. The bride
and groom were both stuck on the wrong side of the flooded bridge.
But the brave
groom walked over the mountain/hill in the rain to come and organise things on
this side and later someone also brought the bride in a 4x4. The wedding would continue. I wasn’t really in the mood for taking
pictures in the rain at this point.
All I wanted to do was crawl under a blanket and hide away till the sun
came out.
But I had to get
to action. I didn’t even have time
for a shower and don’t ask me what I wore, I really hope no-one took a picture
of me with my dirty hair and I was barefoot for most of the day, because one of
my gumboots had a leak (can you believe it!) and all my other shoes were wet.
It was quite a crazy day and a crazy wedding. The bride got dressed in a smallish room, there were about 15 people inside this room, bridesmaids and some just spectators. I was worried the floor might cave in!
But somehow
everything worked out fine, lots of people squashed into a small space for the
ceremony, some had to stand outside in the rain, watching through the windows,
there just wasn’t enough space.
And at the reception a number of locals also pitched up uninvited and at
some point I was even washing dishes as the plates ran out. I was too exhausted to stay much later
after that…
Top: yesterday
Bottom: today
Top: yesterday
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