4/21/05

My friend (and fellow PCV) Darrell sends me a text message the other day. "There's nothing like an African rainstorm, eh?" He says. I guess he probably knows, since he's been in Chad almost two years now, and is a child of missionaries, having grown up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was right- the same day, the rains come for the first time since September, and leave me shocked that it's possible for a storm to come on so fast, and so strong.

It starts out as yet another brutally hot day- even at 6:30 AM we're approaching 100ºF, and it won't be getting any cooler. I'm teaching, and while the class copies a paragraph on the Red Sox' miraculous triumph over the New York Yankees in the 2004 ALCS- it's my class, so I choose the subject- even if they've never heard of baseball, it's a good story, good conquering evil. I look out the window and see a shelf of gigantic cumulonimbus clouds in the distance- the rain is coming. After school, I rush home, determined to get what I can put away before it's too late. The sky has taken on a distinctly leaden cast now, and the rumble of thunder is growing louder. I sit with Marc and Amos in the hangar (made of wooden poles, wire, and grass mats), and watch as the storm comes in.

First, the breeze arrives- it's suddenly 20º cooler, the thunder is increasing, and there's seven months of accumulated dust kicked up into the air.

Drip. Drip. Drip. DripDripDripDrip Whoosh! The skies open, and for the first time at my house I have running water- straight from my roof to the dirt below. I duck inside, trying to align my buckets strategically with the angle of the tin to get some free water before slamming the steel door.

The wind picks up, huge gusts that race through the windows of my house, despite the closed metal shutters. I look outside. Shit! I've forgotten to move my mattress and table, both of which are getting drenched. The table will dry eventually, but I imagine the mattress is pretty well done for. All I can do is watch as the wind increases to feels seriously like near-hurricane force, and the plastic sheeting grows a gigantic puddle of muddy-brown water directly over my bed. A minute later, it finally rips, sending hundreds of liters of dirty rain directly onto the cotton mattress- looks like I'll be buying a new one at the market this Sunday. I look out the window watching this happen, feeling like a complete idiot for not bringing it in before our tempest began.

Bam!.....Bam!.....Bam! BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM! Hailstones begin pounding the bare tin of my roof, and the wind buffets the side of the house- I can see the metal sheeting of my ceiling rippling. This is the first time I can remember being genuinely afraid of what the weather can do. I have visions of the roof flying off, and giant hailstones fracturing my arms, legs, and skull. I've got to do something to cover my head, if nothing else. Being a Californian, my mind goes into earthquake-survival mode- doorways are safest, get under a table if possible. Most houses in California aren't made of mud-brick though. For lack of anything better I grab my bike helmet and strap it on- the wind howls, the thunder explodes what sounds like directly above me, and the deluge continues. In the midst of all this, I can't help but laugh at how this would look if anyone could see me- a fully-grown almost 25-year old crouching under a plywood table on a red synthetic towel on the cement floor, clutching a fluorescent-green cotton pillow and wearing a bike helmet. As I watch, I see water begin to pour down the wall from the window facing the storm, becoming a slow but steady stream.

Amazingly, the photos I've hung on my wall stay attached, and I'm beginning to think that things might be winding down. Not exactly. The wind begins howling again, and I go over to the window to see how things are holding up. My hangar, the patio, is shaking, and I can see a few large holes in the roof where sheets of woven grass have already disappeared. I hear a cracking noise- oh crap, no. Crrraccckcrash! One of the main wooden support poles of the hangar snaps in the wind and rain, and suddenly 1/3 of the roof is lying in the mud. Something has blocked my front door, and even after the storm dies down for good maybe 20 minutes later, I can only open the door about six inches. A light but steady drizzle is still falling when Livana and Amos show up.

"Merde," is the first thing I hear Amos say as he surveys the damage. Shit.

"La porte est bloqueé- puis-tu m'aider?" I ask. The door is stuck- can you help me? I seem them grunting and straining through the tiny gap, and a moment later the door opens just enough to allow me to get out. My front entrance has turned into a small lake, and stepping on a brick, as well as balancing on Amos' shoulder, I manage to jump out the doorway onto the wet ground.

A red-and-white plastic sakhan, combination watering can, bathroom sink (and toilet paper), and drinking fountain is floating upside down in the giant puddle, and I can see a sheet of my seiko, which has been thrown onto Amos' roof, just across the path from me. My pasta drainer is caked with mud, and the large clay pot I keep cool(ish) water in has lost its lid, and is filled with silt. The table has been blown off the bricks it had been sitting on , and has a huge warp in the plywood. As I expected, the mattress is utterly drenched, already beginning to smell like wet dog.

I clean up a little where I can, but I have dinner plans tonight with Marco, a German development worker also living in Gaya, so I resolve to get back to it in the morning, when I can see what I'm doing. When I come back a little less than three hours later, the hangar has been transformed- the doorway is clear, my stuff which had been strewn all over is neatly stacked against a wall, and the rotting mattress has been rolled up and placed on a pile of bricks. Livana did all this while I was out- I never asked, he simply took care of it.

The next day I go to the market, which is heavily damaged. Virtually all the wooden stalls are destroyed, and rebuilding is just beginning. Even the sturdier cement shops need major repairs- one building has its entire tin roof standing straight up, looking weirdly similar to a giant open can of sardines. I buy three pieces of seiko (500 FCFA≈ $1 each), and pay a kid with a wagon 40¢ to haul it back to my house. Livana, Amos, and my landlord's two sons reassemble the hangar with thick nylon cord and wire, along with several pieces of wood added in to strengthen the frame. All racial stereotypes aside, Livana looks positively monkey-like as he shimmies up the main support pole and climbs out onto the wooden poles that will hold up the new seiko. Two others pass the mats up to him, he unrolls them over the frame, ties it all down, and swings/jumps onto the ground. I surprise them with (semi) cold Coca-Colas and Fantas, which I figure is the least I can do for all their hard work. Later in the day, Amos and I use the rest of the cord and attach virtually every piece of wood or seiko to its nearest neighbor- I hope it'll hold up better next time, but for the moment all I can do is wait. The rain will come again, and hopefully I'll know more what to expect next time. Darrell was right though- there really isn't anything like an African rainstorm.

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