Rain!!

Dude, the rain REALLY helps with the heat. Yesterday evening it rained and then it rained off and on throughout the night. Obviously that made it impossible to sleep outside, but inside it was much cooler. I mean, I was still sweating in my bed, but not NEARLY as much as I would be without the rain. And this morning it was positively CHILLY outside which was great. And then the day hasn’t been so bad, I’ve spent a lot of it inside, aside from going to Yusuf’s for tea and shelling peanuts with grandma. Which would be totally undoable without the cooling effect the rain has.

And just now I heard a rumble of thunder so I went outside to look at the sky and the sky to the East looked positively formidable! Well, not THAT formidable, but pretty grim. So I skipped around the compound and said “san ji! San ji!” which means rain (I think san means cloud and ji means water…originally I thought they were calling it “sen ji” which would be farming water, which would make sense, but I think they actually have a word for cloud and they call it that: cloud water) and my family laughed at me and right when I was yelling “san ji!” it started to fall.

I helped a couple of the little kids catch two little goatlets that needed to be shut up with their mother during the rain. Oumarri let the rest of the goats into their house which is across from his. I guess animals easily get lost in the rain. Plus they don’t seem to like getting wet at all. The boys are probably out bringing the cows in right now. They are gonna be soaked when they get back.

But YES, blessed rain!!!! I was much more excited about rain in Guinea because it meant I had more water – for drinking, washing, doing laundry, everything – especially for bathing, but half the time if it started raining I’d just go out in my latrine and take my bath, grateful for the extra water to make washing my hair possible. I fondly remember sitting on my porch (bless that porch!! Great for watching storms and lightning!), catching rain in my five buckets, filtering them into my six 20L bidons, drinking a cocktail. It was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon, really. I don’t do that here, of course. Because I have an unlimited supply of water from the well, and I don’t have a porch, nor do I have any cocktail ingredients. Definitely makes me nostalgic for Guinea, where I loved watching the storms.

No, here the rain just signifies the breaking of the heat. And that’s enough.