Photo(s)-a-(every other)day(or so) - 18 River Road

So, as I explained once several months ago, we live in a dead-end street on the slope of Mount Vigie, and where the tarmac ends, a footpath works it way up a ravine to where there are several bangas (typical Mahorais housing, which are no longer made of mud and straw and bamboo and palm thatch but of corrugated tin). When a heavy rain falls, water gushes down the flank of the Vigie, carrying with it mud, detritus, and alllllllllllllll the garbage that the inhabitants of the bangas toss into the ravine or into the pathways outside their yards. The majority, if not all, of the people living up there are illegal immigrants and there is no trash collection service up that way.  Not that that would likely change the littering habits, which seem so ingrained in the population here.  Anyhow, aside from soda cans and soiled diapers, you also have to watch out for floating freezers. The probability of the water being contaminated with diseases is high as well. No plumbing up there, either...

Our landlord, barefoot and apparently unworried about damage to his feet from rusty cans and nail-studded boards, trying to make sure the majority of the trash keeps flowing down the road instead of getting stuck in front of our houses.

 

Here is F, the neighbor, dashing back in after moving his car out of further danger, ie, the possibility of *another* freezer shooting down the road and banging his bumper. The torrent carried the first one off too quickly for me to get a good shot of it. Zebu owners hollow out old fridges and freezers and use them as troughs for their animals. Empty or not, not something you want ramming into your car.