Last Sabbath it was raining so much that I really wondered how we were going to walk to church, but it eased up as it was time to leave and we managed to arrive without getting too damp. People were wearing puffer jackets though! I was like, ‘Guys, it might be raining, but it’s still twenty-nine degrees!’
Because it was thirteenth Sabbath, the kids classes sang a selection of songs for the adults after their lesson. Lucy began walking during the week, so she displayed her newly-acquired skill by walking out of the choir and straight down the centre aisle, tottering precariously with arms outstretched and the largest pleased-with-herself grin on her face.
At closing Sabbath, an announcement was made that we should head straight home and remain indoors for the night because the inclement weather was expected to develop into a cyclone. So we duly obeyed, and managed to boil the kettle to bath the kids between the power cuts before we decided we’d all be best off in bed. I woke a number of times during the night and just listened to the wind. At one point, I realised our bathroom window was ajar and rain and grit were being blown in at high speed, so I closed it, and realised rain and grit were still being blown in, only now around the window frame. When we woke in the morning, I thought it was a lot earlier than the clock betrayed because it hadn’t got very light. But breaks blew in the clouds as the morning wore on and we opened our front door and surveyed a tremendous flood in the valley below us and a quantity of palm branches strewn about the grass between us and our neighbours. So that was Tropical Cyclone Josie: she was only ever a Category 1 and passed within about 150km of us.
The flooding of the river in the valley reduced drastically within a few hours but on Tuesday we drove out and saw the debris along Sabeto Road where the water had been. Many of the houses had been flooded and, according to our taxi driver, Nadi had been a foot underwater. A lot of the shops were open but a lot were cleaning out the muck inside.
We spent a couple of days at Sonaisali Island, where the showers were always hot and the pool was always open. (The beach was not really a Thing on this occasion because there was such a lot of flotsam washed up by the cyclone, and still floating in the sea.) We had a marvellously-relaxing forty-eight hours and didn’t think about ants or assignments at all. Reggie and Lucy adored the pool and consequently we spent most of our time wet, though the sun shone down.
(Brent and I actually thought the water was pretty great, too.)
We had dinner at a table on the sand and I said to Brent, ‘All restaurants should be like this,’ because instead of fielding constant questions (and tears) about when the food was coming, we watched Reggie do this:
And now we are home, and expecting a storm again this Sabbath, so I’ll let you know how that goes.
Reasons I Choose To Look Up 