Day's Diary

January 23, 2007 ~ Rain

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This is the rainy season in Malawi. That is a simple statement, but it holds powerful images for anyone who has been in Malawi for the rainy season. Yes, it is the impact on the roads, as I’ve described and as some of you have experienced, but it is much more than that. It is the rain itself that makes an impression. People here live for it and they live with it. That is part of life. Even as I write, the rain has come. The day began sunny and cloudless, but it is the rainy season and the rain is expected sometime during the day or the night. Sometimes it is gentle and soothing, but other times it can become torrentially. Sometimes it begins one way and then becomes the other. I remember seeing a movie about Africa in which an elderly village gentleman walked everywhere with umbrella in hand and I thought it was a curious movie moment. No, it was an accurate portrayal of a wise village man. The rain will come — how and when are the only variables. The wise person is prepared. That preparation takes many forms. One is the perpetual umbrella, and another is the construction of the houses, at least in town. There are no gutters on the roofs here to catch the rain, but there are gutters, of a sort, on the ground. Builders make shallow trenches under the overhangs of the roof and then line those with bricks and cement over the bricks, making troughs for the water that falls from the roof. These troughs are pitched away from the house at a point and carry the water to the yard, or other safe spot, protecting the foundation of the house. When the heavy rains come, these troughs can fill with water in no time at all.

I’ve lived in Southern California, and I thought I had seen rain and I had, for Southern California. Rain is Malawi is in a different category. It is a full sensory experience. The roofs here, for the most part, are metal. The sound of pounding rain on the metal roof can be soothing and, at other times, be almost deafening. We were having a meeting the other day that was suspended for a time, until the heavy rain let up, because we could not hear one another speaking above the sound of the rain on the roof. The other evening we had a downpour and I could not see 6 feet beyond my door. The house behind mine seemed to vanish in the rain. To step out into a rain like that invites soaking to the skin in a matter of a moment. Sunday, when the rains came, an elder gallantly held the umbrellas for me, to walk me to the truck, a mere 25 yards and he was drenched for his kindness. There is an aroma with the rain that is difficult to describe. It is not sweet, but it is in a way. The scent of the rain lingers after the rain has stopped, as if to remind you that it has been there, as if the standing pools and puddles are not reminder enough.

How you welcome the rain depends on where you are when the rain comes. Sit in the shelter of a well constructed house, and the rain almost offers a feeling of security. It can be a lullaby for sleep as it pounds its rhythm on the metal roof. But there are houses that are not as well constructed. I was at the Ndirande Handicapped Center when a heavy rain began. This is one of the poorest districts in the Blantyre area. The roof of that building is metal, but it has gaps and holes and as the rain poured outside, the puddles began to form inside and I was feeling a bit vulnerable, until one of the young boys there said how thankful he was to be in such a safe place during the rain. Safe was not my perspective, but then mine was not his. His home had a cardboard roof. I thought of him on Friday evening when the rains came in torrents, not for 10 to 15 minutes as happens many times, but in torrents that kept up for over two hours. I thought, too, of the houses I had driven past that afternoon as the rains began. Silas, Margaret and I were coming down from Domasi as the rains began. Some of you remember that road. There are a number of small houses with grass roofs that are clustered in villages all down the road. I could only imagine the soaked lives of families gathered, waiting for the rain to let up, with drips or streams of water coming through the grasses, soaking them and all they owned, and having no place to go to escape the deluge. The rain does not stop people, though. Sunday, as the group of pastors drove to Blantyre in yet another downpour, people, some with umbrellas in hand and some with none plodded through the deluge, trying to avoid the pools of water forming beside the roads, and not get drenched by the passing cars. There were as many pedestrians as there are on a clear day. Their lives took them out of the relative security of home into the rain, to do whatever it was they had to do. Life goes on, rain or not. Fruit and vegetable vendors stood along the road, willing to sell their goods to anyone who would stop. For, when all is considered, rain is a blessing. Without it there would be widespread famine, as there was in 2005, so no one here complains about the rain. Many times, no one even comments on it. It is a part of life, a blessing. It enables life to go on.