Beautiful rain.

Beautiful rain
Oh, come, never come
Oh, come, never come
Oh, come to me beautiful rain

~ Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Saturday afternoon. The air is steaming as the temperature climbs. My clothes and hair cling to me in the humidity and I know that my dripping hand washing will not be long on the line. We are in the heart of the rainy season, yet the rains just do not come, the temperature instead soaring higher each day, like the birds that circle in the sky, rising steadily on thermals.  The ground is parched and hard and the thick red dust clings to my feet as I walk through my village.

But today everyone senses the rain is coming.

I asked my colleagues whether they prefer the wet or dry season. The thick slippery mud that comes with the rains, or the fine dust that clings in the dry season? Both the mud and the dust make travel to rural villages a challenge. We need the rains they replied. Or the crops won’t grow.

Within this wet season, the rains have been alarmingly scarce. We have had frequent water-shortages, sometimes for up to 2 weeks, and it is not uncommon to see students wandering the village with buckets and jerrycans in search of a water supply. Fill your buckets while you can – because you never know how long until you can replenish your supplies!

Every day, the beating sun has scorched the air to such an extent that my tin roof flexes and creaks, the dry mud walls are too hot even for the armoured spiders to stay in their dark cracks.  And when we have been lucky enough to have a short rainfall I sometimes love to stand until I am drenched and my hair and clothes are cool and soaking and clinging to me, hanging heavy with water.

Now it has been 6 weeks. There have been a couple of cool drizzly mornings where the hills and lake have been lost – hidden in mist. A few heavy downpours mid-afternoon - soaking me, despite my umbrella, and sending the entire village running for shelter - have passed so quickly that by home time the road has already dried and again become hard and ridged and dusty. Once again leaves have turned crisp, beans parched and yellow, the pods dehydrated and withered.

But today there is the scent of rain in the air. Like battleships above me, low storm clouds roll slowly in – the heavy weights of the sky. My neighbours glance upwards, anticipating how long until the sky breaks. They move quickly, washing pans, glancing up, storing firewood, glancing up, moving utensils indoors, closing windows, glancing again at the sky. And as dark wet circles appear on the ground, we grab the washing from the line, throwing it over our shoulders, and dash quickly indoors.

As I pull the door closed behind me, lightning strikes so close that the small space between my house and my neighbours’ is filled with intense, blinding white light. I turn away from the window so as not to see the next lightning strike. Our village is on the top of the hill and it always seems as though thunderstorms unleash their full intensity on the tiny tin roofs of the small rural community here. In the last rainy season, it unsettled me to hear my neighbours describe how scared they had been of a particularly furious thunderstorm. For now the storm is immediately above us and I too feel frightened.

Drilling onto my tin roof, the rain rapidly becomes heavier, until the sound has become deafening, like white-noise that fills my head and my house. The volume notches up, higher and higher. And then it just stops. Like suspense building in a thriller. The sky holds its breath. I find the dramas of nature awesome and fascinating, but the storms here are really terrifying and beyond anything I have experienced.

An almighty thunder crash explodes, deafeningly close, and I can feel the impact of the electrical explosion in the sky above me. With the thunder, immediately there is torrential rainfall, once again pounding my roof, like hooves, as if we have been caught in a migration stampede.

Buckets and basins placed on the ground outside beneath the ends of gutters fill quickly and overflow. Paths have become rivers, splashing and gushing. Dark patches spread slowly down my wall, as water seeps in around my window frames. I check that all my electrical appliances are unplugged, unsure of what to next. In schools, lessons simply stop when the rains come as it is impossible to think, let alone hold a conversation above the drumming rainfall.

There is nothing more I can do and I am glad to climb into bed, beneath my duvet, until the storm passes. Many of my friends here in Rwanda do the same I know. A good friend was telling me that the biggest storms are followed by the deepest sleep.

I wonder whether the rains today will be enough to save the crops that my colleagues mentioned before.

 I hear the drums echoing tonight

But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in the 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say
"Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you!"
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

 

~ TOTO, AFRICA

Muchaka Muchaka

‘We’ll be meeting at 5.30 for the running…Hazel, you’ll be joining us?’

Now I’ve never considered myself sporty, and although I used to run in the UK (sometimes), it’s not been something I’ve ever got round to here, even though I had always sort of thought it could be nice to!

I thought I had some excellent excuses: a lack of sportswear, it’s far too hot, and I know I’d end up being followed round the village by most of the children here. Everybody here loves sport and they are very curious about my lack of sporty action; I was explaining my reasons to a friend in the village last weekend and I loved his response to my final excuse, ‘But how wonderful that would be!’ He kind of had a point there when I actually thought about it!

My TTC were organising a special commemorative cross-country run, although the students actually run every Saturday morning anyway! Tutors were being allocated to each class of 60-70 students and attention turned to me. Now, I’d say that I already work a significant number of hours at my TTC during the week, plus after class clubs and weekend visits when I am here in the village. I’d also say that 5.30am on a Saturday morning is not really what I’d consider to be within reasonable working hours, so I felt pretty justified mumbling something about having already made plans!

What I didn’t expect the next morning was to wake to what sounded like a carnival procession passing through the village. Each class had left the TTC at intervals of about 5 minutes and they made their way towards the village centre and out towards the hills, passing the end of my road in very high spirits!

The rhythm and pulse of their running and chanting was infectious and immediately filled my head and heart! Having quickly wrapped myself in a kitenge and slipped on my flip-flops, I found myself standing by the side of the road as they passed to wave and cheer them on, house keys in hand; assuring myself that as soon as I had greeted each class, I would walk home and head back to bed!

Except that my students were so surprised and happy to see me, and the rhythm of their running was so strong, that I found myself running along with them, first past the shops and houses as we left our little village, then beyond into the fields.

I can honestly say that running has never been so much fun! The singing and chanting and whistles and shrieks created a beat which everyone ran in time with together and as one singer became tired another took over. Somehow running seemed so much easier when each footstep is in time with 140 other feet (and looking around I certainly wasn’t the only runner in flip flops!) and everyone one around you  is putting as much energy into chanting at the tops of their voices as they are in running.

 

The class ahead of us left the cool morning air filled with orange dust as they’d pounded along before us on the dry road. The sky was streaked pink as the sun crept over the horizon and cast a soft amber light on the houses and people as they went about their morning jobs; sweeping, collecting water, stretching and just standing by the roadside as we passed by.

As I settled into the rhythm I looked at the other students running with me.  Some ventured ahead, turned to run backwards and incorporated dance moves into their running, before falling back within the group. Others practiced their judo kicks as they ran and many others just clapped and sang and ran.

I realised that I’d joined the class in the top year group with so many extremely fit sportsmen, who are at the stadium in the village most evenings as they practice football, martial arts or volleyball! As we continued further and further away from the village I did worry that I’d never make it back, but after a moment’s ‘breather’ at the half way turning point, one of my students took my hand and we ran together and he pulled me back up the hill! As the village came back into view I picked up my pace again and found myself surrounded by children from the village as they joined us for the final push back to the stadium. I wondered how I’d found the stamina to keep up for the whole run, which I’d say was around 7km. Perhaps my nights out dancing in Kigali until the early hours have been of benefit after all!

We ran across the stadium, through the cool grass, damp with dew, and formed a circle, as each class had also done. Within the large circle of students, the children from the village also formed a smaller circle, loving trying to complete each bend and stretch! Even the warm-down exercises and stretches maintained that rhythm and different students took turns to come to the middle of the circle to lead the exercises. Eventually everything descended into a hip-hop style dance–off, followed by a grass fight! We jogged back to college, everybody with huge smiles on their faces, feeling strong! My class did a final lap of honour round the TTC, continuing the chanting at the tops of their voices and it felt like the happiest start to the day ever!

I realised a few things: 5.30 am is a stunningly beautiful time of the day here, it is cool and fresh and a running is a completely invigorating way to start the day. A lack of sportswear is no barrier - nobody batted an eyelid at me and my unconventional running shoes (which were also the shoes of choice or necessity for many other students). My friend in the village was right that running with the children here would be wonderful… and as I left the college to finally head home again, one student approached me to  tell me how  wonderful it had been that I was there and how happy it had made the students that I had joined them. He added, ‘You were so fast, you ran like a fox’!

I think I might have discovered my new favourite thing in Rwanda – Muchaka Muchaka (Swahili).