Heavy Rains Meant No School.

Manila has had a long history of being flooded.

If it rained heavily for 3 hours straight in Manila, people in the dormitory knew to expect that Leon Guinto street would be flooded again.  If it rained especially long, we could expect Taft avenue to be flooded and therefore no school for the whole university.

The water would reach up to slightly higher than your ankles and effectively cover your entire shoe! Not very appealing since the water was very dirty.   All sorts of garbage and dead animals could occasionally be seen floating in the water.

Some enterprising people with pedicabs would charge us exorbitant prices to ferry us across the flooded area.

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I always got caught in the floods and I was so disgusted at having to wade through the water that I went and bought a pair of wellington boots.

Ewwww!

Now I could brave the flood waters and get to school on time!  My boots would dry out in a corner of the class room ready for the trip back.

One day I was with my friend Roger.  It had rained and I was carrying my boots home from school because I had expected it to flood.

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When we got to Leon Guinto street it had flooded and Roger had no choice but to wade through the water.

“This isn’t so bad” he said.

All of a sudden we passed through a floating garbage heap that had a halo of oil floating on the water.  The oil stuck to Roger’s legs and made a little halo around him too.

“Oh MAN!!!” Roger cried.

Later in the dorm I passed by Roger’s room and found him, fresh from a hot bath and frantically disinfecting his feet and legs with rubbing alcohol!