Rainy Season

Well, it's officially rainy season. We have had 2 good rains so the farmers are planting their peanuts. The red fuzzy bugs are out in force and the winged ants are hatching and depositing their wings as they flutter around the lights at night. The fields are just starting to show a tinge of green as the grass begins to grow. The millet farms were planted early this year, so the millet plants will be coming up soon.



At this point in the rainy season, we can go a week or more between rains. The humidity rises and rises until you think you are going to dissolve in a puddle of slime. Most days it's probably in the 90's with 80-90% humidity. I'm not sure how that rates on the "heat index" that the weather forecasters use, but it's definitely sticky. Suellen insists that I don't sweat, but that's not true. It's true that I don't DRIP sweat, but I do have a good glow most days. (Haven't you heard that ladies don't perspire, they glow.) At the clinic, they used to mark the FST (first sweat time) each day. When the FST is 8 a.m., you know you're in for a bad day unless it rains. The rain itself is wonderful as it usually is accompanied by cool breezes and a reduction in humidity (at least temporarily). I also enjoy the sound of rain on the corrugate roof. In a bad storm, it's deafening, but in a gentle rain, the sound is soothing.



As much as I enjoy the rain, I feel sorry for those who have to cook outside over an open fire. Many have a separate building that is the kitchen where they can have their cooking fire, but some people don't have a kitchen or their kitchen fell in the rains. (A mud-brick building tends to do that.) So on rainy days, when the rain lasts all day, most of my friends have to struggle to cook for their families. Not to mention that the bathrooms are outdoor pit latrines. Not much fun in the rain.



The rain ruins many roads. Most roads are just dirt paths, so they are washed out easily and develop mud holes that are car traps. The trick in driving on these roads is to follow the cart tracks and see where they go through the puddles and where they go around. (It also helps to have 4-wheel drive : ) My favorite technique is to avoid driving on the worst roads until they dry up, but that isn't always possible.

My next blog will have a picture of one road that I drove on recently. Some people say that most of the roads I take to the villages with literacy classes aren't really roads. That, however, is another blog.