Mvua-Rain

It is rainy season here in the valley.  It will continue until sometime in April.  When I first got back this year, everyone was talking about it being a drought.  Granted they had not had the normal rains in about a month it appeared.  But since I have been back they have gotten some great rains.  Some were a little hard but most were the great moderate rains that lasted several hours that do very little soil erosion damage but soak the ground.

Yet I still get discussions about it being a drought year.  At first I thought this was something similar to the jokes about Farmers in general that they are never happy with the rain.  There is either too much or too little.  Having grown up on a farm-more animals than crops but still in the community-I get the basic problem.  Too much rain can destroy crops just as easily as too little.

Now when we have droughts, one of my Reverend friends likes to say "if you pray for rain you should carry an umbrella"  meaning if you have faith that prayer works and you pray for rain you should expect rain.  They pray for rain here a lot, but no one carries an umbrella or at least most don't.  That may be because they use umbrellas mainly to shield them from the sun while watching the cattle graze.

I don't carry umbrellas ever.  That is a different much darker story.  I do carry my rain jacket during the rainy months except when I am walking.  I have found this to be an excellent way to guarantee rain almost every day.   

When I leave for my six mile walk the first three miles are all uphill because we are close to the lowest point in the valley.  Normally it is bright and sunny when I leave.  But when I turn around to head back it often looks like the picture below.

When I turn around I am hot sweaty and already tired, so when I see the rain clouds I can't really say I am happy to see them.  Normally those are drenching rains.  I squeeze out the water from clothes when I get back and get around a gallon and half of water.  The day I took these pictures it was a hard pelting rain that almost felt like sleet hitting me.

When I am in these rains I drift off a bit as I walk back and remember a simpler time in life when I just kept walking with all my gear in some jungle with the heavy rains.  Actually I often think of the Forrest Gump line " We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. "

Both of those roads were dry when I walked past them 30 minutes before.  The good news is that the crops are growing and it is a sea of green if I could see the color green.  This year they planted mostly corn and sorghum.  

All of our water tanks are full which is always nice to see.

The overflow on our large tank

What is striking in a day when most people in the states only grow crops for themselves as a way to get fresher crops or teach their kids something or occasionally to grow them for farmer's markets, what a difference in the importance of rain is.

Here their crops are the lifeblood of the family.  They depend on those crops to supply the money and food for their family for an entire year and this is the only rainy season they get.  They don't have to walk their cattle everyday for water because it is a fun family side project to have a cow, goat or chicken.  They need them, they depend on them completely.  This is the only way the majority of Tanzanians know to make any money or to provide for their families.  yes the majority.