rainy season

I have yet to write about how miserable the dry season really was. Think of the most uncomfortable you have ever been - 8th hour into a long flight, air conditioning broke down during that heat wave, those heels you wore to work that now reside in the depths of your closet, just the sight of them sends a chill down your spine. Ok, got it? Think about it, think about it... Ok, now, imagine feeling that way consistently for about 5 months. No break, not in the middle of the night, not first thing in the morning. I was sweaty, hot and tired 24 hours a day and covered head to toe in heat rash. There was no real sleeping, just closing my eyes and pretending that I wasn’t roasting under my tin roof but rather roasting on a Caribbean beach. No one moves during the dry season, forget moving, no one even really talks during the dry season. We all just stare and nod, as if to say without words “yes, it really is this miserably hot right now. It hurts a little bit.”

All that to say, it is now the middle of the rainy season and I may be the happiest I have ever been in my life. My village has turned into a paradise of lush greens, yellows, and red. Corn, tomatoes, groundnuts, and peppers grow in neat long rows all over the place. There are little birds and butterflies fluttering everywhere. Young boys spend their afternoons fishing and swimming in the small creeks and streams that were just a floor of hard dirt a few months ago. Everyone, cows included, are just a little bit plumper, a little bit happier. I could be living in an entirely different village.

The best part of the rainy season, well, is the rain. The sky gets incredibly dark, and the wind picks up and we all know to retreat to our homes. For the past few weeks it has been raining all day and all night. That may sound miserable in New York, but here I can make a hot cup of tea curl up in my bed and read all day and think nothing of it. All week! Yea, life stops when it rains here, and I kind of like it. While some volunteers are trapped in their villages because their dirt road to freedom is flooded, I happen to live on one of the major roads in Ghana. This time of year, I really have no complaints. So when I mention it being a beautiful day here in Ghana, I mean thunder and lightning. Music to these little ears.