Rain!

Well I do believe that we are officially transitioning into the rainy season. Last Monday night, we were in the village when a really bad dust storm kicked up, which has usually been indicative of rain. We’d seen a little bit of rain here and there, but on Monday it really poured! It was sprinkling off and on all evening, but we kind of thought it would stop by bedtime because that’s what it had always done before. I had already set up my cot and mosquito net on the porch because that’s a little bit cooler to sleep in during hot season than my tent. Our hut and our porch both have roofs made out of sticks and grass, but the porch roof is looser and lets rain through. It turns out that when the rain comes through that roof, it turns to mud because everything up there is so dirty. Well, by the time we walked from H-Mama’s to our hut, my pillow, sheet, and Thermarest were COVERED in muddy rain. I have a tent with a rain fly so Abby & Sarah helped me set that up (theirs was already set up…it just had to be moved). It was absolutely the craziest bedtime we’ve had in Africa.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but our hut is made out of mud (mixed with animal poop), including the porch floor, so the ground was all muddy and puddly, but we still had to set the tents up because that was the best option. Also, it was CRAZY windy, so the 3 of us are trying to lay down a mat on the ground to protect my tent, get out the poles which are knocking into everything, attach my tent to them, AND put on the rain fly, all while the wind is going nuts and we’re being pelted with muddy rain. AND it was completely dark outside so we’re doing all of this and trying to hold flashlights at the same time. BUT I’m not going to complain because it was pretty fantastic to sleep in a much lower temperature to the sound of rain on my tent.

All I have to say is thank GOODNESS Ethan made me practice setting up my tent…complete with the rain fly…as SOON as he, Emily, and I got back from buying it. He even timed me. I think it helped. It’s like Monday night was the moment I’d been preparing for all along, like the Olympics of tent pitching.