Though I’ve lived in many different places in my life, I’ve never really experienced a true flood. I have heard and seen pictures of flooding, but his year I got to experience it myself.

I had gone to stay with my friends the Tahitoes in Kelapa Gading Sunday night so I would have an “easy” journey to class the next day. However due to the heavy rain all night Sunday and all day Monday, there was no way to get back home and I was stranded in Kelapa Gading for four days.

Early on Tuesday morning (the second day of the flood) the rain stopped and we were able to get a big truck to go pick up my friend Jessica’s family. The plan was to be in and out as quickly as possible–but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men… Needless to say it was quite an adventure.

We went and got a quick breakfast, as the house was without water and power, and then headed out to start our “quick” rescue operation.

On the way to pick up Jessica’s grandma, we passed these children playing in the flood water.

We met up with the truck and headed into the flood, ready to evacuate Jessica’s family.

The roads were crazy…I’ve never seen so much water in the streets.

We picked up Jessica’s family and began the trek to pick up Mark, an eight year old who was stranded with his nanny because his family couldn’t get to him due to the flooding.

Unfortunately, the truck broke down and Uncle T and I had to make our way through knee deep water to get to the mall where we could rescue Mark.

Once we got Mark, we made our way to Uncle T’s house, where Mark’s family met us and we reunited them.

After a few hours, the rest of the KG team met us in a different truck and we proceeded to start riding through the flood giving people rides.

  

We met all sorts of interesting people that night. People would get in and out when we got them to where they need to be. There were some times when I wasn’t sure that the truck would make it, but it did!

Once it got dark and it was harder to deliver people, we decided it was time to go buy supplies for the emergency food packages for the evacuees in one of our slum communities. I’m pretty sure I have never bought so much food in my whole life.

After dropping off the food and everyone back in their homes, we got in the truck and headed back to the Tahitoes house to sleep for a few hours before day 2 trek activities.