The other night it rained so hard some of the streets in Davao were 4 feet under water and apparently it happens often enough here that no one really gets too concerned about it. I guess during the rainy season (which every travel book will tell you is from May to September in the Philippines but which all my Filipino friends say is in December and January) it sometimes rains so hard for a few hours that the drains can’t keep up. The streets that lie a bit lower in the city fill up with water. We came out of the mall to find taxis and jeeps with water well above their wheels still transporting passengers. When the water would get into the engine or exhaust and they would stall, kids would swim/wade out to them and help push them to higher, drier ground for a few pesos. We watched from a pedestrian overpass by the mall while waiting two hours to find an empty jeep that would take us near home. Amazingly, the next day, the streets were as dry as dusty as ever.
