Rainy Season

Forests once steeped in sand and dry leaves have been renewed into more vibrant hues of green set off by surrounding fields of tiny newborn grass.  A carpet of emerging cloves lines the edges of the streets where water collects and where the trees protect the soil from the thirsty rays of the sun.  Butterflies, birds, and flowers have begun to reappear in numbers.

The wet season here is like spring, except that it was a season of heat and not the winter’s cold that killed the earth’s harvests.  But, it is the same rebirth of colors and smells. And it is the same awakening of energy that now enables the Mamas to rise from four months of hot slumber and to pick up their shovels and hoes in the newfound coolness of the dawn, continue through a less ruthless afternoon, and return to their normal chores when they return home at dusk.  There is an exodus of families leaving Mokolo, to return to the surrounding rural villages where they will tend to their crops.

Moreover, school break has begun, and so the teachers have fled as well, to the other regions of Cameroon from which they came.  Thus, the children are left on their own, to govern themselves.  They are supposed to manage the houses, but instead, they oversee the streets.  They play soccer, spin pinwheels made of plastic bottles, run with metal lids attached to sticks, or gather rocks as if they were jacks.  They make and enforce their own rules, care for or hurt each other, and answer to authority only when they return home briefly after dark, hoping there is food.  By that time, the women have left the fields and may be sipping from a wooden bowl of bil-bil, the local wine made of fermented millet, as they launder the clothes for tomorrow, and watch the day’s meal simmer over burning firewood.

From time to time, the rain, which has brought about this newfound pattern of life, also disturbs it.  When the winds become heavy enough to carry gusts of sand and littered plastic bags, and the sky darkens, work and play pick up a hurried pace until the first large drops of water begin to splatter; and then everything stops.  Depending on where an unexpected storm has found them, people huddle under the leaking overhangs of shops, in the nearby homes of strangers willing to take them in, or under the plushest tree they can find.  They stand in silent witness, in deference to the thundering sky or the deafening clamor of water on the aluminum roofs.  The electric lines tremble and give in, and in the evenings candles are lit with the hope that they will not be needed for long.  Finally, when the air becomes more still and the sounds of water softer, life returns to normal.  If it is daytime, the sky brightens, the flies return, and work and play continue.  If it is nighttime, the dark air is cooler, the mosquitoes more numerous, and sleep is more satisfying.  Yet even after it is gone, the effects of it can still be seen everywhere.