A Wadi ran through it...

The events described in this post took place on or about Febuary 7th, 2010 in Nizwa, Oman. For those of you viewing this through Facebook 'Notes', the original post is available on www.henrickatlarge.blogspot.com. It will enable you access to photo galleries and other multi-media material which don't transfer into 'Notes'

Sunday was one of those rare occasions in the Gulf when it rains. And like the old adage, when it rains... it pours. It was a well known fact for a day or so before the downpour that there were storm clouds over the region. But with mountains dividing much of Oman into ragged quadrants whose idiosyncrasy rivals the effect of British colonial cartography, its almost impossible to now where the rain will fall.

The clouds loomed dark and ominous overhead for most of the day on Sunday. My self and other teachers were all clearly pondering the question in our heads. 'Will it rain'? The look of curious uncertainty was etched on all of our face.

Later that afternoon, after being blanketed for several hours by clouds (which were flying so low they obscured the tops of the local mountains), the first drops began to fall. The day dripped by literally. With volleys of liquid dropping intermittently from the sky for several hours. But what one must remember is that people here (like in most other places), live in the valleys. In the surounding mountains it was pouring as clouds were forced to drop their payloads to rise above and beypnd the rising mountainous topography.

By about three or so in the afternoon (with the rain still periodically coming down in varying degrees of intensity), the call went out. "Everyone must leave, the Wadis have begun to flood'! I wrote about wadis sometime last year, and I won't repeat myself again here. So, I will just redirect you to that post.

The Wadis turned from dry river beds to raging forces of primal hydrodynamic fury in what seemed the blink of an eye. By the time I was on my 5 minute drive home, the roads had already been flooded in some spots, and traffic had been reduced to a crawl (or 'wade', as vehicles were forced to creep through the flooded parts at barely the pace of a crawl).

What made traffic matters worse is that there were pedestrians attempting to cross the streets at every conceivable point in the road. Everyone was trying to get to the wadi to see. Omanis were out in force. Gathering on what had now become the 'riverbank', watching the tumultuous brown river roar by.

I have included some photos at the top of this post. It is important to note that these pictures are of the same place (right behind my apartment, which at this point had become waterfront property). The first few are of the flooded wadi. The second group of photos are two days later, after the Wadi had delivered all of its water about 136 Km due east into the Gulf of Oman. I have never seen a Wadi like this before. There were wadis in Rustaq, but not of this size. So, for me this was a rare treat. I hope you enjoy them as well.

H