The Rainy Season

As we have now officially entered the "short rainy season" in Limuru, the weather has become odd but perfectly predictable. Every morning I wake up to rain and fog - serious fog, like the kind of fog where you can only see to the street in front of the house and not much further (see picture). This hangs around until about 9:30 in the morning, when it quickly disappears and the sun comes out. We're blessed with sunshine until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and then big clouds come in from the horizon. In another hour or so, it starts raining lightly, and by the time it's dark outside, the rain is coming down full force! It usually rains for most of the night, which makes for great sleeping - I love how the sound of rain on the roof drowns out the dogs and donkeys that usually form my night-time entertainment.

Apparently this is the time of year when these rains can be expected, which is good news for Kenya. For the past couple of years the normal climate patterns have been totally out of whack, but maybe this is the start of a return to predictability?

Apart from allowing me to sleep really well, another major side effect of the rain is mud...lots of mud. When most of your roads and paths are made out of dirt, consistent rainfall brings about a quick transformation from dusty dirt roads to deep, deep mud. It's impossible to walk anywhere without getting your shoes caked with the stuff, so I've pretty much to come to accept the fact that getting mud on shoes, cars, and floors is pretty much unavoidable these days. This makes me realize how much of our time in America is spent on man-made surfaces - basically all of it. When it rains in the States you might get a little wet, but you are always walking from tile to wood to pavement to stone to bricks...none of which turn into mud! Sure, its a small difference, but it's cool that I've been here long enough to start noticing the little things that you might not think about on a vacation...