about rain

I still remember when I announced to my friends that I was moving to england for at least 3 years. their reaction was overwhelmingly: 'why england? it rains there all the time!'
the first month I was there the sun never stopped shining and overall it wasn't half as bad as anticipated. no worse than other parts of northern europe.
having said that, it is also true that when it rains in england, it sometimes doesn't stop for weeks on end, a continuous curtain of water dribbling from the heavens to the earth - and that really does get on your nerves a lot. (although it also has the nice side effect that the island is one of the lushest I've ever seen!) everything is damp and cold, your clothes take a week to dry properly after washing them, it's humid and often there's wind which makes the damp permeate your clothes, umbrellas are useless because they get gushed about by the wind. in short - there are times where you wish it would never rain again.

now the tables have turned. the climate in kigali is that of eternal european spring/summertime, never too hot, never too cold; light at 10 past six in the morning, dark at 10 past six in the evening - every day of the year. no seasonal change, just dry and rainy seasons. in my first year this meant there is the long rainy season which begins I think in february and lasts until may or june. then the long dry season which goes from may-ish to september-ish, followed by a short rainy season which goes up to november-ish and then dry again for a couple of months. however, the first year I was here rainy season meant a couple of hours of rain a day, and then usually dry for the rest of the day. very rarely was there what I have come to call an 'english day' - i.e. rain falling lightly but constantly all day long. during the dry season it would still sometimes rain - not every day, but still.

now - the rains stopped sometime in may and since then I can remember exactly 3 times that it rained. and only once was there one of those alleviating showers that wash the dust out of the air and off the plants, that cool down the air and leave you feeling fresh and energised; kind of like eating a slice of cold watermelon on a hot summer day. the other times it was little showers that stopped before they could do much.
it is also hot these days; not unlike british summer - but also close. it's a heavy heat that presses down on you, that makes you sweat even though you're sitting in a darkened office without moving, it's the kind of heat that curbs your appetite and weighs down your spirits. it won't let you sleep at night because it is everywhere, pressing in around you and weighing you down. in short, the kind of heat that makes you yearn for rain. and the most evil part of the day is when the clouds start doing the rain dance. they gather in the sky, the wind starts blowing and you can smell an edge of rain on its outskirts, there's that chilly edge to it which you welcome and cherish despite all the dust that comes with it. it makes you look up to the skies and assess the cloud colour, density and formation - and every day I think, today it will fall, today we will get respite. and a couple of hours later the clouds have dissolved and the heat is once again pressing in on you. and this, believe it or not, is when you actually wish you could go back to england for a couple of weeks and get a rest, enjoy the rain gushing on the windowpanes, the soil soaking up the water and turning it into green canopies and fields.

it should have started raining by now; the rains are late. people say it won't rain until october. in kenya they're expecting a drought until november. I think some people call it global warming, or climate change, or something. think about it.