The rainy season follows the hot season, and it definitely qualifies as hot here. This week I saw the little electronic weather station in our compound hit 140.6 degrees. I’m not sure if it can actually be that hot, but if not, it was certainly hot enough to throw the thermometer completely out of whack. What I do know however, is that while the mercury doesn’t seem to be climbing any higher than its normal craziness, the humidity level is rising rapidly which makes 110+ temperatures feel like someone has mistakenly thrown you into the pit of Hades in the middle of the night when there is no electricity to power the motionless fan to stir the hot air.
It was one of these hot and sweaty nights when I first met the Sudanese rain. I had just fallen asleep when the wind arrived, slamming open and shut the metal shutters and doors to my impenetrable concrete block dwelling, waking me to the sort of racket that a child might create while improvising a drum set with pots and pans.
The wind brought with it a dust storm messy enough to leave sand in my sheets and make my pajamas look like I’d been out playing in the dirt. I tried to be still, ignore the dust and noise and enjoy the breeze, only to wake up again when I realized that it was raining in my room. I had a sudden Anastasis flash back moment as I jumped out of bed, climbed up on the headboard to shut my windows which are about 10 feet off the ground and covered everything that I didn’t want to be wet and dirty.
The fast, hard and cold rain cooled the night and washed the intensely dusty sky. I woke up in the morning to the aftermath of the rain. Our compound was all messy and wet with things blown over and broken. Even my floor was wet from the rain that had run through the metal shutters and gathered in puddles under the bed. I didn’t want to get up after another half sleepless night of chaos, but I crawled out of bed and climbed back up to open my windows to let in the cool fresh air.
Balanced on my tip toes, the action on the other side of the screen captured my attention and I lingered a moment peering through the window into my neighbors compound. They were scurrying about picking up the pieces of part of their 'home' that had been completely blown away in the night. I was overwhelmed with feeling and I suddenly realized that in a strange way the rains had also washed away the self-centered haze that’s been clouding my vision since arriving in Darfur.
The dust was gone and I could finally see how much I have here and how thousands of people surrounding me have nothing. I’ve been so focused on all that I’ve given up to be here, that I’ve lost sight of the true abundance of blessings that I possess.
I walked through town today and up to the top of the small hill that overlooks Geneina where hundreds of little straw shelters have been built by people who have been forced out of their own villages. I wondered how they fared the rains? I try to imagine what these people do when rain beats down on their heads in the night? Do they crouch in the corner and hover over their children to try to keep them dry? Do they shiver? Can they even count the hours to sunrise like I do on my sweaty sleepless nights when they have no watch or timex indiglo alarm clock? How will they cope when the rains come to stay for the next few months?
Perhaps tonight as I lie awake again in my hot and sweaty room, instead of counting sleepless minutes, I’ll count the things I’m thankful for… the walls around me… the ceiling over my head… and the amazing opportunity that I have to be living among the people of Sudan.
The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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