Culture: Rain

With nothing falling from the sky from September to April, the red clay earth is parched, dried and cracked. Almost all vegetation has vanished, picked clean by scrawny goats and donkeys looking for nourishment.  It is not the endless sea of Arabian dunes that you see in movies, just barren, flat, dusty, unforgiving terrain with occasional trees offering the only escape from the heat. The temperature in hot season reaches around 110 F each day, though completely dry heat, and falls to 85-90 at night. Wells are beginning to dry up and we experience for the first time that with extreme dryness, our lips, feet, and hands were drying and cracking as well.  With the lack of water, people stopped gardening since January, so now, aside from mangoes, the only fresh produce is brought in from the big cities, meaning it is pretty scarce. And with the supplies from last years disappointing harvest beginning to dwindle, people start looking anxiously toward the skies.

Without rain, the ground is too hard to plow, the emaciated livestock can not hang on, and life here can’t continue. And it’s this desperation which means that people will try everything and anything to make sure the rain comes. The animists sacrifice chickens and beat drums for rain. The mosque is suddenly full of pious worshippers praying 5 times a day for rain. The Christians hold special services and ask for God’s mercy in bringing rain. Both animists and Muslims have even asked the “tubabs” to go to church and pray to bring them rain.

And as the days go by without it, people get increasingly anxious. Everyday, the grueling heat increases. One day, it seems that the temperature could not get more unbearable. Sweat pores down our faces and soaks through our clothes as we sit in the still shade and chat with villagers. “Its hot,” we state matter-of-factly. “That means the rain will come soon,” they reply in a similar tone.  But we look at the cloudless blue sky and roll our eyes. We do our best to work through the afternoon, but its difficult when the stifling heat each night means we haven't been sleeping much.

Then without warning, a warm, humid breeze rises up like a blowdryer and a wide dark cloud appears low on the horizon. Within minutes the wind is howling, battering the houses with a tsunami of dust and sand swept up from the grassless fields. The temperature drops 30 degrees within the next 15 minutes as the black stormcloud gets closer and closer. With blinding waves of sand whipping at their faces, people scramble to bring in their laundry, tie up their animals, and gather their families. Everything must be secured when rain and wind come in this magnitude. It can destroy anything left outside the protection of mudbrick walls. Running inside, people wrench their tin windows closed to keep out the flood of sand and lock themselves inside their still-boiling mud hut.

And then it comes, a howling torrent of cold rain which thunderously pounds on the tin roofs making it impossible to have a conversation with the person next to you without screaming, but immediately cooling down everything it touches. As we check our roof for leaks and then finally sit down, our hearts are still pounding from the frantic pre-rain preparations.  The rain rages, the first time for only a few minutes, but as rainy season progresses, the storms can last for hours.

But soon after that comes an amazing feeling. As cool air seeps in the cracks of our windows, we feel combined relief from the stagnant heat and knowledge that sleep tonight will be restful.  These are sweet, beautiful moments. And the feeling never gets old. As the terrifying storm front passes, it drags behind it a steady stream of rain without the wind. Then, as you stand at the door of your house and watch it flood the clay soil, you can’t help but breath in deep that life-giving smell and smile, knowing that life can continue and flourish in an otherwise uninhabitable place because of this incredible phenomenon.

 

~Joye (and Jim)