Tamale is storming up a storm!

Oh, this is me in Sankana (mentioned in two of my posts about being in the field) having a calabash of pito.

This week was fairly…non-descript I guess. I’m working in the office again, actually doing stuff this time though. I am starting to tie up loose ends in my life here in Tamale before leaving at the end of next week. Things like, selling my books, taking photos (haven’t really done that in Tamale yet), buying gifts, a bit of schoolwork, etc.

On Tuesday, Awine and I went for a walk, and Lise joined us this time. I am still not sure who we visited (I thought we were going to one of his friend’s places, but I think it might have been family of his girlfriend). Halfway there it started to rain. I was pretty excited because this was the first REAL rain since I’ve been in Tamale. As soon as it came, though, it looked like everyone else was panicking, running inside to escape. I know that during the first rains in India it is cause for celebration in the streets, but not here! That was kind of disappointing, mostly because my joy and dancing in the rain would be seen as the behavior of a mad man.

We got to our destination just before the rain, wind and lightning REALLY started coming. We were visiting a family in an apartment in a fairly nice complex on the outskirts of town. Their home reminded me of grandma’s. Not my grandma’s, but just any grandma’s. You know what I’m talking about. The mother of the house welcomed us warmly and brought us all bottles of Guinness (score!) and we chatted for a while as the young kids giggled at us. I wanted to leave just to enjoy the storm outside, but I knew we wouldn’t really leave until the weather let up. The daughter, Audrey, was the cutest thing ever and she was missing her two front teeth. I asked if they had any traditions about what to do with teeth when they fall out. No tooth fairy, but they do go outside and throw the tooth in the direction of their uncle’s house, then dance. The dance is to make the next tooth grow in strong. Lise said in France they have a tooth “mouse” that comes when you put your tooth under your pillow, and leaves a small gift. Jeez, the French are silly sometimes.

The next day we got tons of mangos, thanks to the rain! Everyone at work thought it was kinda weird when I sliced mango and squeezed lime into my lunch of beans, pepper, yams and plantains. “That’s how you do it in America? You put mango in your beans?”… “Umm…no…it’s just me…mangos are rad. What?”

That night Lise came over for dinner, and while she was there, the rain started to pour like crazy. It came so fast that when I walked out of my room it was silent, and when I got to the kitchen, 4 feet away, the rain was deafening, and the flashes of lightning were bright. I ran outside and was completely soaked in about 12 seconds. I got Lise to come out too, but she only stayed out long enough to get half-soaked. It was coming down harder than the night before, and I thought for a moment that it was the hardest I’d ever seen it rain…but then I remember that I’ve been sure of the same thing in Belize, India and Thailand…so I’ll just say it’s the typical ridiculous tropical rain. After an hour it calmed down…and then doubled in intensity. The wind was intense and I could see it knocking down tree branches. One of the branches that came off our mango tree was huge, probably 15 feet long and thick. I actually saw it fall. I watched at our doorway for quite a while. At one point I watched a huge bolt of lightning flash across the sky and could not have been more than 2 km. away. The blinding brightness was followed by pitch darkness as it knocked out our power. I had just finished my dinner (luckily) and had started writing something for work…but with the power out, who wants to do work? So Lise and I decided to use my two hours of computer battery to watch a movie. It was pretty fun, being cozy inside from the storm…but I couldn’t stay away for too long, and I kept running outside to experience it. Right outside our door the water was about 8 inches deep. Also, my roof was pretty leaky and would have flooded my room if I didn’t put down a couple of buckets.

I didn’t see Awine until about 11:00 that night, after the storm was over. I was still pumped and I asked him if the storms were always that intense. He didn’t seem to understand, and told me that he had been sleeping since he had eaten dinner. He barely even noticed the storm. Oh man! He missed out! Or…this is pretty common and as exciting to them as the rain in Seattle is to me.

The next morning on the way to work, I saw quite a bit of destruction. Lots of big tree limbs down and quite a few shoddily built shops or houses leveled. I saw one wooden food stand that was now upside down in the pedestrian/biker lane. It was pretty sad to think of how devastating these storms must be for the people in the villages where their homes are not very sturdy.

Just before getting to work I saw the stand where we usually buy our yams for lunch. It is basically just a thatch roof shelter held up by a frame made from about 6 branches. It always looked like it would fall soon, so I was not surprised to see it destroyed. I was worried about Monica (the yam seller) because she sells yams for a living. It is a steady income for her and her kid(s), but I doubt she’s got the spare cash to have her place rebuilt. Coming in to work, I was all worried about her, but when I told people they just kind of laughed. They told me that the magnitude of the storm was pretty common, and they did not seem too worried about Monica. I don’t know if that is because they know she will be alright, or if they just figure, well, not my problem. I really hope it is not the latter.

This storm, unfortunately did not bring mangos. It basically knocked them all of the trees, and very few of them were ripe.