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I woke up early today. My officemate who I am riding with was sick so I have to get a bus to reach Gulf News. I went down our building at around quarter to five and was surprised that it was raining. Covered with jacket, I walked towards the main road to catch a cab to the bus station. But on my way there, I stopped because of what I saw… FLOOD!!!! Again, I was surprised. I thought I already left this problem behind in the Philippines. So, I walked around to find a way out of our block to reach the bus station in time, but to no avail, everywhere I went is flooded knee high. To add up to the problem, no cabs were entering our place for the so obvious reason that they might get stuck in the flood.

I was left with no option but to call my boss and inform her of my situation. Luckily, she immediately understood me because she herself was stuck in traffic going to office and it was already 10 past 9. I asked her if I could just take the day off and she obliged. Thank God she was very understanding today (because usually she isn’t).

So what shall I do today? I decided to walk around (the flood) and took pictures of the area flooded. It was chaos on the streets. Vehicles are literally like parked because all of them were not moving. Some unfortunate ones were stuck in flood water because their engines wouldn’t start. If it was in the Philippines, you would see street children swimming on the streets treating the flooded areas like a giant swimming pool.

So, why did it flood? Well, according to sources I cannot disclose (he he he…), when roads in the UAE were being developed they have never anticipated rains of this magnitude. Who would? This country is supposed to be composed of 80% desert and is supposed to be not expecting any rain at all. They never even included drainage systems on the road, that’s why when it rained continuously over night all rain water was stuck on roads making it a big swamp.

One good thing about this is that I felt a little bit close to home. Although floods are not the typical ways to make you remember the Philippines, in this case it did. And it did put a smile in my face. I remembered my days back in college where I used to walk through flood just to reach school to make it in time for exams. Ha, the good old days in the Phillippines… how I miss it a lot…