Waiting for the Rains

5 a.m. is an ungodly time to be awake.. but if you have to be, and you can do it outside, it can also be a very uniquely peaceful time.

To board our early-early bus to Marua, David and I woke at just before five and began walking the quiet streets of sleepy Garua under a deep indigo sky. A passing taxi-moto agreed to take us to the bus station, one at a time, so I perched behind him with my suitcase and we took off with a quiet rumble that echoed down the dark streets. At this early hour there were few lights on save a scattering of fluorescent business signs, and few pedestrians save those walking, presumably, to prayer. Not a single car. Coming up to the central town mosque, we glimpsed in the front yard a few rows of kneeling Muslims; just as we passed and rounded the corner, they all simultaneously bowed to the ground. It was fantastic to be on the moto-scooter, the fresh air flowing into my face, and though we weren't going fast I had the incredible impression of gliding through the night.

Then we arrived at the station and the spell was broken; the driver zoomed away to fetch David and I went to track down our tickets from the reservation office. They weren't yet available, so after David arrived I left my bag with him and went to loiter malignantly like a tumor in front of the window, so as to be near the front of the ticket-getting crush once it happened.

(Of course, I was forgetting that in Cameroon, things happen differently, and despite standing right there I missed the start of the ticket distribution because there was no sudden crush.)

Women with armloads of baguettes and pyramids of tan hard-boiled eggs for sale began to set themselves up on little stools on the curb, while enterprising children already ambled about balancing plates of fried dough on their heads. We were among the first to arrive, but soon dozens of passengers were wandering about the open area amid carcasses of luggage as the sky lightened to the pale colorless hue that belied a very hot day to come. It was just the end of the dry season, during those last few days when the heat is intense, and everyone prays for rain.


After arriving at Marua, we wandered the town, me with my already-broken-but-much-appreciated umbrella, as it still sheltered me from the blinding sun. Temperatures were at their hottest, and the extreme-north Sahel town was parched. Everyone was talking about the imminent rains, and I was struck once again, as in Japan, with the reality of weather as a huge part of daily life, even survival. In America, we have succeeded in shutting weather so fully out of our business - save as a convenience or inconvenience - that we enjoy the artificial impression that weather does not really hold the power of life or death over every single creature. Perhaps it once did, but surely we have triumphed over it just as we have triumphed over smallpox and ambulatory transport. Hot? Air conditioning! Cold? Central heating! Wet or windy? Retreat indoors! Still and muggy? Electric fan! The quirks of the weather are relegated to those side facts of existence, the most inane and most dependable of all awkward small-talk fall-backs. How's the weather?

Of course, we are periodically reminded in the most disastrous ways of how weather does still shape the course of every single day. It is at these points that we remember: Weather is a fiend, indeed.


That night was hot, a heat made more intense by the lack of power that deprived us of our electric fan. We tossed fitfully in our beds, sweltering in the dark airless room, batting away the frequent whine of mosquitos. (As a soldier in the Great Mosquito Jihad, I was made powerless by the lack of light.) And so we hoped for sleep, lying in pools of sweat made sticky like glue by copious applications of mosquito repellent, pining after the cool night air just outside the door, but unable to rationalize leaving our door open while we slept.

That rationalization came in the form of David's Fantastic Door-Opening Idea at 3:30 a.m., which was to open the door wide and move our beds in front of it to impede the stealthy progress of any uninvited guests. (And maximize that fresh air.) The plan was no sooner hatched than implemented. A few minutes later brought the most blissful breezes wafting over us, and it was such pleasant relief I ended up leaning on my bed against the doorframe, sleep forgotten, looking out at the quiet night and the distant flickers of lightning in the distance. We had had a teaser of the first sprinkle in the late afternoon, a sudden showering that made all the street sellers and men in the market scramble to batten down their wares even as they told me, This isn't it - the rains haven't really come yet. But you feel that heat? they asked me. Soon.

At four a.m., as thunder rolled about softly at the far western edge of the sky, I sat on my bed and breathed in the rain-scented zephyrs; I sat and thought, and listened to the wind rustle in the trees overhead, and to the distant barking of dogs.

And then it was 5:00 a.m. again.. and time to go to sleep.