Rainy Season

Rainy season in Kiuta is an interesting thing. When I first arrived in September, which is the middle of the dry season, the first word I would use to describe my site is "red." All the plants were dead and everything was covered with a rust-red dust; if you opened the window of the Japanese Kindergarten bus you were taking down Mtwara's ever-present dirt roads, you would not only step off the bus feeling like you spent the last four hours in a blender but you would also acquire the pallor of a bad spray-on tan, courtesy of the dust.
But now, the Monsoon Rains are here and they are awesome in the original sense of the word; they put you in your place. The muddy red roads have become overhung by the vibrant green, encroaching bush and my nights are filled with the soothing sound of torrential downpours hitting my sheet metal roof; with time, a sound I once associated with The End of Days has become cozy. My mornings are still in the low nineties and sunny but by around four or five pm, conveniently after school ends, the thunder starts and the heavens open.
Everything becomes more isolated with the rains as well. Suddenly, the 12 km to town you used to travel in the back of a flatbed truck become an insurmountable boundary. Bajajis that used to take you to town now refuse to make the drive out to your school. The rainy season makes me appreciate my neighbors. Nothing is more comforting then, when I'm stuck in the village on a rainy afternoon, crouching around a wood fire while my bibi tells me about the good old days of carrying gargantuan clay jugs of water on her head and my babu tells me about his legendary days as the village's best bao (a game kind of like mankala that is always played by young men in the shade of a tree by the main road) player; after I asked "why don't you play anymore," he looked at the space just above my right shoulder, paused, and yelled "because now I'm blind!" We all thought this was exceedingly funny.
Sure the afternoons spent staring at the mouldy ceiling boards while rats dance in your crawl space and the rain sounds like two Boeings taking off in your head can make me question why I'm here. But, when I know the price of being content is getting a little wet and smelling like a campfire, there's really no excuse for getting too down.