Rainy Season
Posted By Sika on November 8, 2007
Is starting early this year. On Saturday, around 6:30 (pronounced “half-six”) at night the lightning started. At first there was no rain and no thunder, and then a little drizzle started, but it sounded like a real rain because the tin roof amplifies the sound. The lightning started coming more and more frequently, but the thunder still failed to follow. My power was out because I was having electrical issues (which are fixed now). I went out on the porch to stare enviously at the lights of the neighbourhood and to see if the thunder just wasn’t audible over the rain hitting my roof. Then the lightning started coming every few seconds—FLASH/FLASH/FLASH/FLASH—barely allowing the sky to darken between streaks of light. Every once in a while there would be a half-hearted crash of thunder. And then there was—FLASH/FLASH/FLASH/dark—as the neighbourhood’s power went out at the same instant as the lightning stopped for a few seconds, plunging everything into sudden and startling darkness.
I’ll confess to feeling a little smug. My candles were already burning and my headlamp was in my hand and I didn’t have to dig them out to be able to see. Logic may dictate that there wasn’t much cause for smugness since my power wasn’t going to go back on with everybody else’s, but I find that to be such a limited world-view.
The lightning eventually slowed down a bit, but only after it continued to streak across the sky every few seconds for at least 20 minutes—lighting up Zomba like daylight over and over again.
It is tempting to write that the rain goes rat-a-tat on the roof: it’s how I pictured it would sound as each raindrop makes its mark. There is a distinguishable counterpoint melody as the rain hits the windows – a light, clear, breaking wet sound, but for the most part the rain hitting the roof just makes a thick, heavy, white noise that drowns out everything else. Only as the storm lets up can you hear the wind whipping it away to throw its temper tantrum somewhere else. In the heaviest part of the storm the noise becomes so loud and forceful that you begin to think that perhaps there are gods and to wonder what exactly you’ve done to offend them. It sounds as though the rain wants to drill right through the roof like a determined psychotic stalker just so it can be closer to you.
Which I guess is a small price to pay for the magic that happens after each rain, as Malawi transforms from dried out plains to a tropical wonderland, green growing things shooting up wherever they can grasp the tiniest foothold. Plus, the rain is fostering mango season and soon it’ll be “mango mango kwacha kwacha” (MK140 = $1) and really, to be able to buy a mango for a kwacha I’m willing to put up with a whole lot more than stupendously awesomely breathtaking storms.
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