Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal are majorly affected, with residents of Ougadougou (Burkina) and Dakar (where we are flying into) fleeings in their tens of thousands. Sewers are overflowing, hospitals are washed out and everyone is worried as there are a few more weeks of the rainy season to go.
The UN and aid groups have told of bridges and roads being literally washed away. Power supplies have been knocked out and in Burkina alone 150,000+ are homeless. My worry isn't about the water itself, its about the dangers that come with it; water-bourne diseases like cholera and typhoid that become pandemic after the contamination by raw sewage.
But then again maybe this could be something we could help out with in Burkina. All of the other countries on our list we've got a handful of places that we definitely want to visit. But Burkina's list is sparse. There are some sights we'd like to check out, but the plan was to just arrive in Ougadougou and see what was going on.
We could help out with some aid agencies and give our stay in Burkina a bit more purpose. By the time we reach there though, it should be well into the dry season, and hopefully the floods will have subsided, if not dried up completely.
On a side note, I sent my friend a text asking if he'd seen the news about the floods. His reply was a swift "I'll sleep on the top bunk then". Smart ass.
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