Years ago a friend once told me, full glass in hand, that he “thanks water.” At the time I nodded, thinking that I understood the importance of it, but I didn’t adopt the habit myself. However, after spending time here in the desert-like Extreme North, I feel that I finally recognize the meaning of the practice. Not only do I thank the water, but I revere it as God.
When I first traveled to Mokolo, I saw out the window that as we went north the life gradually was sucked from the soil. The solid red hues of the earth became tan and crumbled, rivers became sand channels, and trees and greenery became more and more sparse. In Maroua, the hundred-feet-wide corridor of the Tsanaga is hardly recognizable as a riverbed. Herds of cattle shuffle through the sand (toward what might have been downstream), with their shepherds chanting alongside, carrying walking sticks and wearing flowing gowns. Women pay it no mind as they cut across it, balancing giant ceramic vats on their heads. Men descend into holes they have dug twice the size of graves, but just as deep to bathe and wash their clothes in what amounts to a large puddle. Everywhere around me is the reminder of how sacred water is.
For myself, I have never craved it or been quenched by it in the way I have experienced here. Enduring days of sauna-like heat and sun requires at minimum two liters a day, usually three. And when I’ve tried to cheat with maybe just one, my body dissents with a thirst that I have never known before. Then there were the few occasions when I turned the knob of my tap and nothing came out but a suction noise. Each time, fear gripped me as I assessed for how long supplies would last.
When I traveled to a more Southern region in early April for training, it had been over four months since I had moved to Mokolo, and thus four months since I had seen rain. When a thunderstorm blew in, I spun in circles, relished the drops on my face as I looked upward, and marveled like a child that water could fall from the sky. Then, again, in Italy, traveling with my sister, I took a secret pleasure in a night where we huddled under an umbrella to escape a chilly drizzle on our search for cheese trays and hot soup. But neither of those rains was as satisfying as when I sat on a bus, traveling between fields of dry dirt and stone mountains on the way to Mokolo.
As we rode along, I saw dark clouds in the distance and through a cracked window I smelled it – the unquestionable, fresh, sweet scent of wet earth. A few miles later, sprinkles of water began to fall against the front window, and soon after, the drops were a full-on rain. The others in the bus began chattering excitedly in Fulfulde. The woman next to me smiled broadly, stuck her hand out the window, and then washed her sleeping baby with a sweep across his face. I stuck my own hand out, feeling the wetness pelt my skin. I must have looked awe-struck because the same women then explained to me that it was water, and I smiled back and said “yes, rain.” “The first rain?” I asked her. She nodded. The bus fell silent again, and a few minutes later it was gone, as quickly as it had come.
Since then, it has rained a few more times, each time for a longer period. When I hear rumbling, I open my doors wide, and sniff the air like an eager dog waiting for the scent of its master. I watch the clouds and try to decipher their direction. I stare at my raincoat and umbrella before I leave in the hopes that I will need it. And now, when I take a cup of water in my hands, I see it for more than it is. Before pressing it to my lips, I thank it. I thank it for giving me life, for cleansing me, for nourishing me. In return, I am a servant to it, I have faith in it, and I rejoice in it.
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