When It Rains

There’s nothing like a good rainfall to bring the promise of green and fresh, unless it continues raining like the Flood in Noah’s time . . . That’s the way it was beginning to feel last weekend. From Thursday evening through Sunday morning the rains came in waves. Thunder rumbled across the landscape every couple of hours. Our family stayed mostly inside.
But we can’t say that we weren’t warned. Everyone told us that we were arriving during the most dreary part of the Ethiopian climate season, the season called “Krimt”. From June through August, we were told, expect constant rain. But since arriving in early July we have also seen the sun enough to give us hope that we were going to escape the warnings of Krimt. But there it was, coming down like the proverbial “cats and dogs”.
Rain that comes long and hard produces a sea of mud in the small alleyways and on the dirt and stone streets off the main roads. Vehicles drive thru making impressions ever deeper. People must find ways to walk around the deep and wide muddy puddles that cars leave behind. But that has not been the hardest thing to deal with.
Cold. For a family coming from a North American summer of heat and humidity coming to daily 60 degree temperatures is an adjustment. It is cold outside but that is bearable. But it is also cold inside. There is no heating in the houses. I was used to turning on the heat in the mornings for an hour during similar weather in April in St. Catharines, then turning it off the rest of the day. Just to get the chill out. But no chance of that here. We wear layered clothing and shiver in the morning when we get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
Cold plus damp equals dreary. So on Saturday we stayed in and watched it rain. Wanda and I were reading big thick paperbacks and the girls were playing games or playing a form of house. Sophia got pillows and blankets and with chairs set up strategically, created a play house with the blankets draped from chair to chair to be the roof. We had bought a chicken to roast and Wanda made it for supper that night. Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans. It didn’t turn out like at home (and no, Grandma Amstutz and Grandma Roth, the mashed potatoes were not like anything you make. No mixer, the mashing was all done by hand). The chicken wasn’t quite as plump and tender as we are used to expecting. This chicken had apparently spent many happy days being a “free-ranger”, running around and toughening those muscles. Still, it was a taste of home and the girls were happy. They ate everything on their plates and asked for seconds.
The sunshine did return on Sunday so we were encouraged by that. It would be tough if the rainy season would be so intense all the time. We now know why we keep hearing that the expats are all on vacation for the “summer” away from Addis . . .