Unexpected rain

Now that dry season is here, I have become reckless and have stopped carting my waterproof trousers around with me.  I knew this was probably foolish, but the heat is so great, that I could not believe I would need them.  Of course, this wild act meant that it did rain.  And it rained so heavily.  It seemed to come from nowhere.  Suddenly my moto driver was forced to pull over as we could not see in front of us.  We pulled over and sheltered under the eaves of a house.  The rain was pelting down with some force and the owner of the house came out and invited us to sit inside.

We were ushered into the gloom and sat on a seat inside.  He left and didn’t return.  My moto driver and I just sat there, waiting.  We could not have conversation as the rain was so hard, you couldn’t hear anything above it.  Within 15mins of arriving at the house, the huge oil barrel outside was over-flowing with the water that had come off the gutter and collected in it.  The owner of the house was having a conversation with his friend over the phone.  He really had to shout to make himself heard.  Once the conversation was finished, apart from the rain, it was really peaceful.  I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall.  Thinking of the luxury of it being OK to wait it out.  At home I would be stressed about the need to get to work.  Here, it is entirely acceptable to stop when the rain starts.  There is no way the roads were navigable in those conditions.

Then the children of the house began looking through the door to see who was there.  They gradually became more brave and started coming into the room before running back out, screaming.  This continued for about 20mins.  Then the moto driver encouraged the boys to come and talk to us.  They wouldn’t, of course.  But the older one was brave.  He started to read his school textbook.  He was naming all the pictures it contained.  His little brother soon joined in and they were showing me how many words they knew.  It was lovely to see children looking at books – even if they were school books.  Then they picked up a story book and had a “read” of that.  Although it was in English, so they seemed to make a story in Kinyarwanda.

Looking around the room, my eyes began to adjust to the gloom.  Our moto helmets were piled near a chair in the corner.  With the exception of a table and some chairs and a picture of the Holy Family, the room was bare.  And the floor was perfectly swept.

The continuing rain made me sleepy, almost like a lullaby.  The darkness was lit up by the occasional flash of bright orange lightening and was accompanied by loud cracks of thunder.  It sounded like the hills were being split apart and the house would shake with each one.

After we had been there for nearly an hour and the boys had become more brave, I asked them if I could read to them.  So they came and sat with me and we read the story about the hare and the moon.  I know they didn’t understand much but we tried to talk through the pictures and translate English to Kinyarwanda.  We were able to name all of the animals.  The boys were lovely and sat either side of me, listening and pointing at the pictures.  It is so unusual to see a house with printed material in it.  We had obviously been invited into the home of some progressive parents.  After 90mins the rain had begun to ease off, so my moto driver suggested we could leave.

We donned our helmets and got back on the moto.  Waved off by our new friends and some other children who had heard of our presence.  It was yet another of those special moments that exist here, where people kindly invite you in and make sure you are OK and expect nothing at all in return.