Watching The Rains Come

Since arriving back in Dangila after traveling in mid-June there has yet to be a day without rain.  Some days the rain comes in the form of simple afternoon showers and others it pours hard enough to flood nearby fields.  Every town seems to have its own pattern and therefore each PC volunteer has his or her own stories about how to deal with the rainy season.  It is fun to get together and hear about each person’s schedule for dodging the rain.

Dangila rainstorms have a tendency to arrive in the afternoon for about an hour and then they show up again right after dinnertime and into the night.  I personally think the rainy season is a great change and I love the cool air at night.  When I wake up each morning, the sky is already hazy and black clouds can be seen in the distance.  Around lunchtime, there are usually a few spots of blue sky peaking out from behind the clouds on one side of town, but in the opposite direction, the dark rain clouds are waiting in the distance.  Sometime around 1:30pm the first rain storm usually hits.  I know this is the average time because two days a week I meet my tutor at 1:30pm, meaning I always take a gamble leaving my house at 1:15pm to walk over to the preparatory school, where we meet.  When the lingering black clouds roll closer to town people start to close up shop windows and hurry to get where they are going, in order to avoid being stuck in the middle of the storm.  I usually hesitate walking to tutoring as I watch the rains move closer to town, but I also usually take the risk and head out to join the people hustling around the streets.

Almost like clockwork, I will arrive at the school and get inside within minutes of the heavy rains arriving.  One unfortunate day Mother Nature’s timing was a little off.  As I walked the last long stretch of road to the school, with the entrance barely in sight, I watched people walking in the distance begin to scatter.  I felt the heavy drops beginning to fall as I pulled the hood of my raincoat over my head. I could see the sheet of rain coming down the road toward me.  I could hear the noise of rain pounding on metal roofs along the road picking up rhythm. Taking in my surroundings, I realized there were no
shops or restaurants on this final stretch to take cover.  Knowing that once the rains start, they continue for about an hour, and I didn’t want to be stuck beneath a random tree, so I took off running!

I arrived soaked from head-to-toe, mud splattered to my knees, hair matted to my head even beneath the hood of my rain jacket.  My tutor arrived a few minutes after me in a similar fashion, saying he was waiting it out nearby and saw me running.  A couple hours later, I was semi-dry and slightly more enlightened about Amharic.  I am slowly learning to watch the clouds and I am becoming more accurate with my predictions of the beginning of the storm, but every now and then I still get stuck in random cafes or shops, which have proven to be little adventures of their own.  I also must add that I love falling
asleep to the storm pounding on my metal roof.  Rainy season certainly has some negative aspects, like the dirt roads becoming mudslides, or clothes, which take days to dry on the line, but the rains also bring lots of reading/hot cocoa afternoons, and plenty of adventures.

Playing In the Rain

I wrote a couple months ago about the water problems in town, and the consequential battles I have had on my compound.  I am happy to report that the “helper girl” with whom I did not see eye-to-eye has since left and the water collection process is much less of a battle.  While water problems still persist in my area of town, I would now equate my water issues to playing with bath toys; let me explain.

Since I have been living in Dangila for about five months now, I have never had water during the day.  The one tap on my compound only ever flows with water sometime around 10pm to 2am.  I have learned to live with this, in fact this past week I almost didn’t notice that we hadn’t had water in six days!  I have become very good at conserving water and making do with my 20 liter bucket, accompanied by my collection of water bottles that I fill up as well.  The chore that takes the most amount of water by far is washing clothes, and I tend to do laundry on the day after the water comes, filling up my wash basins to get the job done without having to touch my core water stash.

It is frustrating that every day it pours buckets of rain, and yet we still have no water coming out of the pipe.  Day six of no water and I became desperate for a few liters to wash dishes, not wanting to use my remaining two liters on anything but an emergency cooking/drinking stash.  Don’t call the authorities or anything, I could always buy bottled water in town to drink if I needed to, but I try not to.  The rain began to pour in the late afternoon and I went outside to witness Billie (formerly Muluwark, but I now call her by her nickname) filling up big containers with rainwater gushing from one the gutter spouts that lie on either side of my doorway.  I noticed one of her empty washbasins lying around and picked it up to help her collect water from the opposite spout.  Maritu, the helper girl of my landlord, soon came to join us with her own big containers.  One spout ends about six inches from the ground, perfect for collecting in a washbasin, while the other spout ends just an inch from the ground.  Billie quickly grabbed a plastic bag to fill from the latter spout, which she would then pour into her bucket.

The buckets I fill as often as I can!

After a while of helping out I decided that I really needed to wash dishes, so I grabbed my washbasin and was given a turn to fill it up at the spout that was still pouring out water, which was now mostly clear, as opposed to the first few loads which were a bit mucky.  An hour later, I was as happy as could be with a bucket full of clean dishes, retaining those last couple of liters of pipe water for drinking.  I think this was the beginning of a daily routine, which will allow me to wash clothes whenever I wish! Plus, it is fun being resourceful and playing in the rain, filling up buckets like they were bath toys!

People Who Live In Mud Houses…

The view over Gondar, Ethiopia

Today I returned home after a weekend in Gondar, where I had visited to finish a Peace Corps project with a couple other volunteers. Just over a week ago after returning from previous travels and training, I found myself in just about the complete opposite mood that I now find myself in, elated to be in Africa. This post will be a testimony to the real ups and downs of Peace Corps.

Last week I arrived back in Dangila after a fight with the airlines at 6am and continued problems with transportation as the day continued. The one-hour minibus ride back to Dangila from the airport in Bahir Dar was just about the worst event I’ve witnesses in Ethiopia so far. A fight between the man who takes money and a passenger broke out on the side of the road in a rural area which ended in stones being thrown and a window two seats away form me being shattered as we erratically pulled away from the fight. Shaken up already, I arrived back in Dangila to find gray skies, green grass and streets full of mud. I didn’t feel like I even recognized the town; it didn’t feel like the home I had been looking forward to returning to. Not to mention the layers of dust on everything in my house and the pile of dirt in my bedroom from the hole my dog dug in my mud walls. I guess people in mud houses… shouldn’t raise dogs?

The pile of dirt my dog had dug out of the wall.

Today the circumstances haven’t made the day seem any more bearable. On the bus ride I encountered the worst rain storm I’ve seen in a long time. All the phone lines were literally broken in half for several kilometers, trees were blown down, and rivers replaced the normal drainage ditches. Hail pounded down on the bus as the driver pulled full speed through flooded roads. At one point, the minibus (which I thought slowed down for nothing) actually came to a stop on the side of the road with several other buses. I asked in Amharic, “Is this normal for rainy season.”

He replied, “It is not,” with a slightly scared look on his face. Somehow pulling into Dangila the rain slowed down, and I enjoyed a cool walk home in the sprinkling rain. Shop owners and children yelled my name and asked me where I had been. I didn’t have a single person yell “ferengi,” and I suddenly remembered why I loved my town so much. I arrived just in time to run into the post office before it closed to find several wonderful letters from America, and on the walk home, I had a great conversation in Amharic with the children who hold my hands and walk me home. The kids who live in my compound anxiously greeted me and had many questions, which I happily answered. 

Then I actually had a moment of quiet to read the wonderful notes from home, which brought a tear to my eye. I could not ask for a better support system. Every postcard, letter and package brightens my day. Even email, when I am able to access the internet, is a wonderful connection to home. I am so happy and content with life right now. I am so blessed. Thank you for your mail, support and prayers. I am looking forward to settling down to spend some quality time in Dangila figuring out what exactly I can do to help. I couldn’t be happier. 

My dirty but loving dog.