As a kid I was a lifeguard and we would get the day off, with pay, when it rained. I have always loved rainy days!
Your culvert (gully washer) story in the Philippines gave me the willies, but not for the pill box (catchment) section, rather the not uncommon practice of using those culverts as open-air toilets!
LOL, I get that, but this was on the base, and not used for that purpose there at least. The ones at Subic Bay were used only for rainwater.
When I lived in Japan, they did indeed have open sewers on the base, and we used to flush stuff down the toilet, then run outside as fast as we could in time for us to see the item pass down the street!
I do recall once in the Philippines, I was on some trip somewhere with my two brothers and a Catholic Priest, and we stopped near a small pond. It was a hot day, and I asked if I could take a dip. I was just wearing cutoff jeans so I stripped off my shirt and shoes and jumped in.
As soon as I surfaced, a large caribou came to the surface about 20 yards away, I hadn’t even seen the thing as it was submerged there, but it didn’t bother me. They are generally pretty placid creatures (I may have been 12 at the time) and I was used to swimming and snorkeling alone in the ocean, and there were more deadly things in the ocean, and not just sharks.
But what did totally bug me out was as soon as the caribou’s head broke the surface, it was followed by a billow of greenish brown caribou dung that came briefly to the surface long enough for me to see it before it submerged!
Talk about a quick exit from the water!