I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

The morning we left Montana for our grand Peace Corps adventure, my sister decided we needed some music to make it through the final stretch of packing.  She went to the computer and put my mom's iTunes library on shuffle.  The first song?  Toto's Africa.  We stopped everything to belt it out, which of course transitioned into a dance off to Shakira's Waka Waka.  It was time for Africa.

Now, almost nine months later, I know what that song means.  I have blessed the rains down in Africa.  The end of the rains means that Pat and I have gone through our first full season in site.   We arrived in the middle of hot season and are now making the transition into cold season, which I still don't know if I believe in.  Living in Senegal has made me much more cognizant of the seasonality of things.  While people are generally familiar with both the Western and Islamic calendars, time is described most often in terms of rainy season, hot season, and cold season.  The rains started off and on in June and began to fade away in October.  When they first came, they were such a relief from the heat, cooling things down immensely.  But now, I am ready to be done with the season of rains and all that comes with it.

Stormy Season

When it rains here, it really rains.  Our thatched roof proved able to withstand some intense storms with minimal leakage.  The sky could blacken in minutes, and old people would say, "The sky is not good."  Since you get stranded where you are when the storm starts, you have to hustle to get to a place you want to be stuck for a good while.  We tried to capture this sense of anticipation of waiting for a storm in this video.

A storm approaches

Sango te bendin (the sky is not good)

 The word for lightning in Malinke is samata, which literally translates to mean "rainy season fire".  The lightning is so spectacular that we have cumulatively spent hours watching it, which makes our neighbors think we are crazy.  "We run away from the lightning," they say.  "And you run towards it!"  There is also a very strongly held belief that if you do not turn off your electronics during a storm that you will be struck by lightning.  I can't count the number of times I have been told to turn my phone off during a storm.  You can never get ahold of anyone, and the radio stops broadcasting.  Once on a drive down to Kedougou during a storm, the woman next to me in the sept-place would not leave me alone until I turned off my phone and ipod.  When I tried to read a book with a flashlight, she got really exasperated, so I had to settle with just listening to the rain.

Farming Season

We live in what is still a very agricultural society.  I remember arguments made in the states for having school year round since the reason for a summer break in order for kids to help with farming has become obsolete.  Not so here.  School officially started in early October, but kids are just starting to trickle in now, after they have helped with the peanut harvest.  The beginning of rainy season, when last year's stores have been depleted and this year's harvest is not yet ready, is known as starving season.  Then, as different crops become ready, our food bowl changes to heavily reflect the yield from the fields.  We are currently phasing out of okra based sauces into peanut-based sauces.  

My host mom and namesake, Sadio, stands proudly in front of her fields where she has planted peanuts and other ground nuts, okra, hibiscus, a small potato thing, beans, and millet.

Sadio's encampment at her field.  After planting is done, she spends the days here to ward off the monkeys who will come and eat the peanuts.

Sadio shows me her peanut plants that have been dug up by monkeys.

 The growth in vegetation is not limited to the fields.  Our yard, completely barren when we moved in, was constantly overtaken by weeds that just kept getting taller, no matter how much we weeded (and eventually gave in and sprayed).  Now, when the harvest is over, people set the bush on fire to clear out the overgrowth and make it easier to hunt.  Kedougou is burning.

Before.

This is the best picture I could find for the after shot.  But you can see that beyond the fence, where before it was brown, is now completely green.  That was in August.  Now in November, it is nothing less than a jungle, with weeds over ten feet high.

Difficult Access Season

Whether it is due to seasonal rivers across roads or increased spottiness of cell phone networks, things become more difficult in rainy season, especially for volunteers in remote areas.

Crossing the river that showed up in the road on the way to my friend Ian's site.

Mold Season

This is the aspect of rainy season that I will miss the least.  I am ready to reach into my trunk without fera that my chosen piece of clothing will have molded in the humidity.

Plague Season

At times during the past few months, I thought I must be in Egypt under Pharoah.  The pests came in waves that were very reminiscent of the plagues described in Exodus.  First, we had these crazy black wasps.  Then came the flying termites.  Then caterpillars.  Then snails.  Then toads.  The toads have been the craziest.  They are so determined to be in our hut!  We find them everywhere, such as in my running shoes.  In addition to the plagues of pests, rainy season is also the time of year that everyone gets skin infections.  I bet half of the volunteers in Kedougou got staff infections--girls are advised not to shave during this time of year to avoid any skin abrasions that could get infected.  I got away with just one fungal skin infection that just showed up as white spots on my shoulders and cleared up with special shower gel.

So many toads!

The one plague that is the worst here though, is that of mosquitoes.  Because that means that rainy season is also...

Malaria Season

I've written about this before, but the amount of malaria that started happening in my area once the rains started was really astonishing.  Actually, cases tend to spike around this time of year, when the rains have stopped but mosquitoes are still around in the remaining water.  People's guards come down because they associate malaria with rainy season, so they stop sleeping under their nets.

A community health worker performs a rapid diagnostic test on a child with a fever.

As a health volunteer, it is this last understanding of rainy season that stands out the most.  I am already working on designing projects that I want to have in place before next rainy season.  And the way time has been flying, the rains will be here again in no time.