Best day ever

First it rained, really really hard. It rained for what seemed like hours and with an intensity that made it sound like a marching band was playing on my roof. I hardly slept all night and when I finally dragged myself out into the courtyard I saw that the entire street in front of my house was turned into a pond. I spent all day calling it the ocean, telling the kids to try to catch fish and jumping from rock to rock to get out and do some work.

The rain is good news. I was starting to believe that “rainy season” was a misnomer, and my little corner of the Sahel was just an interpretation of “Sahara”. And the farmers. Nine months without rain don’t prepare the fields. But now it came and everyone just chilled out. The weather is cooler, but sticky and it heats up so fast in the afternoon that you could almost see steam rising off the street (or at least off my shoulders).

I had another episode in the night a few days later-- I couldn’t sleep again (I think that insomnia hits a lot of volunteers at different periods) and even though I was just minding my own business reading in bed a big fat cockroach skittered right into my bed, slinking through the gap in my mosquito net (I am lazy about closing it properly because I sleep on the floor and my windows have netting on them). Of course I screamed and jumped up, getting tangled in the net. I have never been so scared in my life. But I was standing there, searching my bed for the bug until I felt it move, on my back. I think I woke up the neighborhood, and then stripped down so fast that my clothes ended up in different corners of the room. This is war. I was excited about the rain until critters started taking refuge in my room.

So it is vacation too, for the kids in school. I am usually not at home during the day, since I go into town to work, but today, Sunday, I realized how exhausted everyone is with the kids. I decided to take a big risk and get out construction paper and crayons. I was terrified-- usually anything for the kids becomes a huge ordeal where things get destroyed, etc. But we had the best morning. Each of the kids drew something for my mom and dad-- I told them I would be going home soon to visit and that my parents wanted to know the kids. So it was a cheap ploy to get to decorate my room with their drawings for a few weeks, but it worked and I’ll try to post a photo-- it certainly brings some happiness to the room!