Rain

We travel south to Nyanza to visit friends and when the storm suddenly comes it’s like falling into the apocalypse; the sky inky, the wind rocking the bus, the rain torrential and only people visible outside the steamy windows pressed against walls with small overhangs, watching the occasional reluctant evacuee from the bus step into the deluge. The rain lifts for a morning walk through the green countryside along a reservoir pond and a cultivated valley then up past small rural homes to the Saturday morning market, but returns to pound noisily on the leaky tin roof of a small courtyard in back a recently built but deserted hotel, beside an empty swimming pool with tiles falling off. A waiter in a down jacket and holding a large umbrella carefully delivers chips and goat brochettes (all there is on the menu) to our table.

Returning to Kigali, the sky clears enough to briefly don sunglasses, but descending to the big river valley outside the city again we again go into total darkness and the driver decelerates to an unusual slowness. Finally arriving at the low-lying edge of the city, at the Nyambugogo bus park, we find water pouring down the hill and waves, yes breaking waves, coming across the road and we get soaked and muddy trying to find where the local bus home has been diverted to and then we sweat in sauna like conditions as the bus takes off, all windows closed.

The rain keeps coming. Another day I’m on my way home from work when I hear the first large drops hitting the roof of the mini-bus;the size of the drops announcing that serious weather is imminent, and for sure, by the time we arrive at my stop wild sheets of water have dropped from the sky and the curbside is disappearing under rivers of red water. The bus pulls over by a gas station, which offers some minimal shelter under an overhang and it’s crowded here: moto-taxi drivers standing beside their motorcycles, a man with a bicycle, women in work clothes huddled under umbrellas in attempt to protect themselves from the gusting rain and the leaky roof. As the thunder crashes and the day turns unnaturally dark except when lighting splits the sky, I’m thinking, what to do. This is not a short storm and I don’t want to stand here for two hours, I’m less patient than the Rwandans, and so I leap into a taxi that suddenly appears.

We haggle over the fare and he gets rain rates, probably double the normal fare, but I don’t care. But I’m soon wondering if I’ve made a mistake because he has no de-fogging ability and can’t see anything outside the window and won’t open the side window and as he weaves blindly through flooded sections of road, I consider getting out but reject it as impossible. When he turns onto the dirt road near my home I hand him his ‘deux milles’ and then take off my leather sandals and walk barefoot through the mud to my gate. I’m soaked by the time I get the key in the lock, but I’m home, and I watch the remaining two hours of this storm from my small side verandah, lightning over the hills, and the gutters running hard.

The rains are here and they are awesome.