Bring May Showers

It may seem odd to entitle this blog entry ‘Bring May Showers’. After all, the old saying is ‘April showers bring May flowers’. In Ethiopia there are generally few, if any, rain showers in April or May. The rainy season is to start in June and finish in September with occasional rains in February and March. But not this year. The rains never quite went away over the past 6 months. In April they became regular and harder. My last blog entry was in hopes of May turning into what we experienced over the previous 2 years; sunny days and warmer nights.


Instead the month of May has brought more showers. Now I shouldn’t complain because it has kept the temperature in the cool 70’s/ 20’s. We have seen more green than any year previous, both in the city and out in the country when we travel and that is good for the land. Also good has been the steady supply of water and of electricity. We have used our generator much less this year and have not had the water problems we did last year. Thanks be to God.



So our back yard is looking rather nice compared to other years. Green grass and flowers, all without the aid of special watering. The photos give you an idea of the flowers in the backyard. The sunflowers we imported, brought the seeds in and planted them. The flower bush is indigenous, feel free to let me know what kind of flower that is!


The last photo is one of our new ‘tukul’. Tukuls are Ethiopian housing in the countryside. The straw roofs are the same throughout the country but the walls are different from region to region. As foreigners some of us have adapted the style to make it into a gazebo of sorts. The idea of a tukul/ gazebo was a long time in coming. We wanted to start last summer. The artisan came in the fall, the materials were ordered over the winter and the tukul was finally built in February. Nothing comes easy here. We did wait a long time for the grass, which came from Meta Robi thanks to friends from our partner RDA. But as you can see, we have put it to good use, especially when we host the Mennogroup gathering.

May has given way to June. Right now there has been a break from the rain. But if the weather is not too wacky, we’ll see June showers in several weeks . . .