New Rainy Beginnings

This is me sitting outside the library (I poked the assistant into letting me keep the gate key and return it to him when I am done) with my jacket over my head and computer, because today, ladies and gentleman, it rained.

It has been a rough couple of weeks here, I have been having a lot of self confidence issues, some questions about the future, and a few medical problems. I keep wondering if people around me think I am weird in a not so good way. I feel like I am back in high school again.

But today is a new day, and today is my day, and today it rained.

I can not describe what it is like the first day it rains here, at least not in words that someone who has not lived without rain for nearly 9 months could ever understand. The rain settles down the dust, and cools the air. It brings life to the soil and the people, it is like a new year, a new feeling, a new season. The rain here comes at a time when the cattle are thinning out, and people have become tense (the rain this year came a month later than it did last year, and last year it was also considered "late.") It brings with it a sense of relief that is felt throughout the community, it brings hope for the new season of crops, and the possibility of life to an often barren land.

It brings green

Over the next few weeks the green in my now very orange and dusty village, will explode as if it has been waiting for the invitation to pounce. It will race down our dusty main road, creep up the rocks in the hills, and envelop every yard and tree it touches. It will expand and breath and live and flourish, it will make the African heat that follows the rains, just bearable; as if God is saying "I know its hot, but look how beautiful it is."

So I am going to take this rain and make it my own. I'm going to allow it to wash off the emotionally crap filled last few weeks, and make room for something new, something green, something fresh. I'm going to breath in the air anew, and let is fill my lungs with possibility. This is the beginning, this is the end, this is today and today it rained.

~Claire