Mango rains

The clouds roll in just before sunset. They come from the east, so it’s not always clear whether the sky is getting darker because of an impending storm or because it’s time for the sky to grow darker. Ominous and looming and every other cliché that has been used to describe weather events before they break.

You are an outsider. Unlike the Midwest where you grew up, the air does not become thick beforehand. You have lost the ability to smell a storm coming. You take your cues from those around you.

People start to get anxious. Almost all work is done outside. The only place to effectively hide from the storm is inside. Mamas wash out the bowls in which they mixed beignet batter earlier. Fires are doused.

Then, the wind picks up. It skims the dry dirt outside and in a furious blast, sends it through the windows being hurriedly closed. It leaves a fine coating, almost snow-like, on anything and everything in your front room.

The cat meows. He’s heard the thunder.

The rain starts slow. Uncommitted. Questioning how much it wants to leave behind. This is, after all, the dry season.

At last, the lightning. The lightning will stay the longest. Passing from cloud to cloud but also violent strikes. There’s no electricity and the flashes are too quick to read by.

Listen. The deafening rain on the metal roof. The thunder louder than motorcycle engines that has scared the animals into silence. Listen. This storm that has calmed the village.

It passes.

Welcome back friend

Around this time last year, I remember waking up cold for the first time in Benin. There’s this time in between the mini-hot season and the in-your-face-you-will-sweat-for-the-next-three-months hot season when the wind comes from the north and it gets dusty and dry and in the evenings and mornings, cold.

We’ve been waiting for this time to come again this year, when Monday, I was teaching 6^th grade and I noticed something happening: all my students were slowly moving over to a group of tables at which no one normally sat. Every time I looked over there, another student had crept over while my back was turned and was trying to act like he’d been taking notes there the whole time.

I was walking around the room checking on my students’ progress on taking notes about the simple present tense when I realized what was going on. The sun was shining on that group of desks. And like cats, my students who had found themselves under prepared for the weather this morning in just their short sleeve uniforms were trying to find as much warmth as possible from any source possible.

The cold season has arrived.