Our first RAIN in 8 months

Maybe not all of you know that when I’ve been talking about the dry season, I really mean the DRY season. We have not had rain since the end of September/beginning of October 2009. Before this first rain (which occurred on June 6), I had not experienced rain in Kayemor since being “installed” in there as an official PCV in late October (it rained once when I was there with Kate for my “demyst” in late September). There was quite a nice build-up for this rain. It had been very hot and humid (it has always been hot, but the humid piece was new) for a few days prior to June 6 and then that evening we had a spell of strong winds. It was so hot in my hut that I decided to chance it and still sleep outside. Sometime around midnight I woke to a few sprinkles. It was barely noticeable so I went back to sleep, but just a few minutes later those sprinkles became much heavier and I decided it was time to move inside. By the time I had gathered my pillow, watch, and book and was climbing out of my mosquito net, it was down-pouring. I quickly grabbed my stuff off my bed, threw it on my bed inside, went back outside and pushed my “mattress” up against the wall of my hut in the hope that that would keep it from getting wet. (I little later I heard it fall down from the wind…so it was soaked by morning, but luckily the sun is hot enough here to dry just about anything.) Then I promptly dug my camera out of my bag and snapped a few pictures to document this momentous experience: the first rain of my first rainy season in Kayemor. These pictures are looking out the back door of my hut. In the first one you can see part of my clothes line and my towel hanging up on it (through the crack in my millet stalk fence), as well as the corner of my cement bed out behind my hut. The second picture is just a little to the left of the first one – you can see my papaya tree, the plastic pans that I have eucalyptus trees growing in it, and the old tomato can that I use as a watering can. After those pictures is a video I took while lying on my bed inside – the sound of falling rain was such a foreign concept to me I had to capture it. It was wonderful. :)