Mud, mud, everywhere...

It rained Sunday for about half the day. Nothing too heavy, just off-and-on sprinkles up to light rain. Unfortunately, when everything is dirt, it doesn't take much rain to really mess things up.

The local dirt/sand is very fine (almost like talcum powder), so rain makes a nasty, viscous, pasty mud - like wet cement. Since it is so fine, it packs together very densely causing the water to sit on top of it and not soak in. The mud puddles don't dry up for days. During and after the rain, the mud runs into and gets dragged into the road where it promptly collects into thick mud banks along the curbs. Within minutes, every vehicle is completely coated in mud, every sidewalk has been doused in mud, and your boots and pant legs are carrying 2 extra pounds of mud. Everything starts to look pretty disgusting. Once it dries (days later), there is mud-cement everywhere which slowly breaks down, becoming dusty dirt blowing around. Rain is not too popular around here.

The last picture on the left is one day after the rain. You can see the mud filling the gutter completely. That will harden to be like cement...we don't have to worry about hitting the curbs on these narrow roads, because there aren't any!