Is not something to get excited about. I love rain – I love going camping and waking up to the gentle drizzle on the roof of the tent. I love lying there and listening to it, enjoying that I am out of the city and it’s the only thing I can hear. But real Ghanaians (or so I’ve been told) hate the rain. Luke Bro
wn (one of the long term volunteers here) told me that I would get “negative integration points” for running outside and dancing in puddles when the humidity broke and the rain came down.
Two nights ago, I found out the reason why – because in Ghana, we have real rain. None of this wimpy, misty, am-I-wet-or-not business. That’s all very romantic in a tent on an island off the west coast. Even a decent Canadian thunderstorm can be somewhat cozy when observed from the couch in a thick-walled, double-paned house (I would probably even go for a little puddle jumping). But it’s a whole different story in a mud-walled, tin-roofed hut in the middle of the rainy season in a tropical country. Never before have I been afraid of the weather.
The noise – I can’t even explain it. When you play that rainstorm game, everyone sitting in a circle, first rubbing, then snapping, then clapping, and so on . . . to reach the noise level that I woke to at 4 am on my first morning in Damongo, everyone in the circle would have to scream and jump up and down as hard as they could. Actually, I still think that wouldn’t be loud enough. The visual equivalent would be when you are in pitch blackness, when you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and you wonder if this is what it’s like to be blind. When the storm woke me, it was so loud and so constant that I couldn’t even hear myself cough, and I wondered if this is what it is like to be deaf.
What woke me wasn’t even the rain – it was the wind. The wind comes just before the rain, as a warning to everyone to get under cover. Well, I was already under the cover of the roof, but curled in the foetal position on my mattress, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be covered for long – the roof creaked against the force and I could feel dust blowing around the room. I just kept thinking that the wind would stop soon, and the rain would start, and things would quieten down. And they did, for about thirty seconds, until the rain really got going. Once it did, I stopped worrying about the roof blowing off and started worrying about the entire house caving in. I can’t remember now which was louder, the wind or the rain.
I decided eventually to suck it up and take a look outside at this crazy weather. I opened my door and stepped onto the verandah, and into the most refreshing, cool air I have ever known (in fact, it was probably about twenty-five degrees, but my room was still warm from the day before, and I had been sleeping in a puddle of sweatiness). It really looked like the sky was falling. Lightning was illuminating the horizon, but the rain was so loud I couldn’t hear the thunder. My host mother, who was outside taking the lids off the rainwater collecti
ng barrels, looked at me and said in her general tone of amused, admonishing disbelief of my crazy, white-girl ways, “Ai! What are you doing here?! Are you not cold? Go inside and lie down!” I laughed at the thought of being cold, but followed orders and went back to bed. I listened as the rain returned to a gentle, finger-snapping level, and watched the lightning flash through the crack under my door.
I’m sure that was the first of many storms I’ll see, as my arrival in Damongo has been credited (by numerous people I have met) with bringing the beginning of the rainy season to West Gonja.
wn (one of the long term volunteers here) told me that I would get “negative integration points” for running outside and dancing in puddles when the humidity broke and the rain came down.Two nights ago, I found out the reason why – because in Ghana, we have real rain. None of this wimpy, misty, am-I-wet-or-not business. That’s all very romantic in a tent on an island off the west coast. Even a decent Canadian thunderstorm can be somewhat cozy when observed from the couch in a thick-walled, double-paned house (I would probably even go for a little puddle jumping). But it’s a whole different story in a mud-walled, tin-roofed hut in the middle of the rainy season in a tropical country. Never before have I been afraid of the weather.
The noise – I can’t even explain it. When you play that rainstorm game, everyone sitting in a circle, first rubbing, then snapping, then clapping, and so on . . . to reach the noise level that I woke to at 4 am on my first morning in Damongo, everyone in the circle would have to scream and jump up and down as hard as they could. Actually, I still think that wouldn’t be loud enough. The visual equivalent would be when you are in pitch blackness, when you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and you wonder if this is what it’s like to be blind. When the storm woke me, it was so loud and so constant that I couldn’t even hear myself cough, and I wondered if this is what it is like to be deaf.
What woke me wasn’t even the rain – it was the wind. The wind comes just before the rain, as a warning to everyone to get under cover. Well, I was already under the cover of the roof, but curled in the foetal position on my mattress, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be covered for long – the roof creaked against the force and I could feel dust blowing around the room. I just kept thinking that the wind would stop soon, and the rain would start, and things would quieten down. And they did, for about thirty seconds, until the rain really got going. Once it did, I stopped worrying about the roof blowing off and started worrying about the entire house caving in. I can’t remember now which was louder, the wind or the rain.
I decided eventually to suck it up and take a look outside at this crazy weather. I opened my door and stepped onto the verandah, and into the most refreshing, cool air I have ever known (in fact, it was probably about twenty-five degrees, but my room was still warm from the day before, and I had been sleeping in a puddle of sweatiness). It really looked like the sky was falling. Lightning was illuminating the horizon, but the rain was so loud I couldn’t hear the thunder. My host mother, who was outside taking the lids off the rainwater collecti
ng barrels, looked at me and said in her general tone of amused, admonishing disbelief of my crazy, white-girl ways, “Ai! What are you doing here?! Are you not cold? Go inside and lie down!” I laughed at the thought of being cold, but followed orders and went back to bed. I listened as the rain returned to a gentle, finger-snapping level, and watched the lightning flash through the crack under my door.I’m sure that was the first of many storms I’ll see, as my arrival in Damongo has been credited (by numerous people I have met) with bringing the beginning of the rainy season to West Gonja.
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