Rainy days

After 6 weeks of no rain at all, we have finally had some this week.  This has mostly come as huge bursts of rain that saturate the ground and then the sun appears to dry it all up again as if it never happened.  At one school this week, it began to rain at lunchtime.  The teachers had all left the site to get some lunch.  As the sky started to release some drops of rain, I noticed children starting to run on their way to afternoon school.  Slowly the rain got heavier and heavier until it was cascading down in sheets.  The playground emptied and still children were running in to the school grounds from all directions to escape the downpour.  The clouds were swirling and casting a murky gloom over everything – the valley opposite became obscured.  As the children were running in to the grounds I noticed many of them holding on to the waistbands of their clothes so they didn’t fall off as they ran for the dry classrooms.  At a different school during another lunchtime downpour, I saw children running across the field clutching soggy notebooks.

View from a soggy staff room

The rain began as a gentle patter on the tin roof of the staffroom, but it grew louder and thunder began to rumble.  The heat of the morning suddenly disappeared.  As the thunder clapped, children screamed in the classrooms beyond.  The room grew dark and the fresh smells of earth and vegetation drifted in through the openings in the wall. 

Heavier now, the rain began drumming on the roof making conversation or listening to the radio completely impossible.  The thunder continued to crack overhead and the building, usually without electricity, was lit up by bolts of lightning.  Dark corners where spiders and their webs have been unseen and undisturbed for ages are now on display.  The rain continued until it was so loud, I could no longer hear words I was reading silently to myself in the book I had with me.  After an hour it stopped, more children arrived to school.  Teachers returned to the building and lessons started up again.  The sun came out and shone down and within an hour, it was as if it never happened.

But this was just a taste of what was to come...I had arranged to be in Kigali for lunch on Saturday.  I was woken in the early hours by the sound of rain hammering on the roof, then the wind started up.  It howled around the house and when I looked out of the window at 6am, the trees in the garden and along the road were bent double.  Rain was flowing off the ends of the roof and guttering and swirling along the drains which are dug all around the house.  Rain began seeping in at the windows and under the cracks in the doors.  The sound of the rain and wind were deafening.  I couldn’t see how I was going to be able to leave the house.  The electricity had gone, my phone and ipod were out of charge.  I tried to read but the noise was so intense I could not concentrate.  I drifted in and out of sleep.  I decided to do my skipping workout but without the music.  When this was finished I felt able to brave a cold shower and to try to get ready for an escape.  Eventually, at 10am, knowing I was already going to be late for my own lunch party, I left the house.  I was wearing my raincoat and had my umbrella up.  The streets were quiet – and this is market day – usually there is a string of people all the way up and down the road in constant convoy to the market.  I made it to the lorry park with only a small amount of mud splashed up my legs and not too wet as the umbrella had protected me.  I was very grateful that a bus was just pulling in, as there is no shelter to stand under in the temporary bus park.  And finally, only 45mins late I made it to Kigali for a lovely birthday lunch.

However, rainy season definitely appears to be with us again.  There have been more downpours and after the weekend deluge, many of the mud roads I have to travel on to work have big gullies in them, making the ride even more uncomfortable than before!  But here, they just get on with it.  I have seen children come into the staffroom dripping wet, to ask for the scraper so that they can scoop out the rainwater from their classrooms where not only does the rain drip through the ceiling, it also comes in the doors and windows.  The lucky ones have raincoats to put on.  Others – like myself and the Headteacher in the staffroom – just move the desk once the drips start falling.  I suppose it all makes life a little more interesting.