Dar es Salaam, April 15 -- EVERY rainy season, the story repeats itself like a badly written sequel: skies open up, gutters overflow and streets become rivers.

Or, put in another way, let us stop pretending the rain is the villain in this story.

The real antagonist is our own behaviour, our chronic habit of treating public spaces like trash cans, especially the drains that are supposed to save us from flooding.

Every plastic bottle, sachet bag, used food pack, or random junk tossed onto the street finds its way to a gutter. And when enough of us do it, those gutters dont stand a chance.

They clog. The water builds up. The roads flood. And we all suffer-motorists, pedestrians, even the innocent children just trying to get home in peace...