Africa Rain

“Into each life some rain must fall.” -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mother nature is a powerful beast. So powerful in fact, she can take away light! Here in Ghana, with her claps of thunder and strikes of lightning comes darkness. As I attempted to Skype chat with a dear friend last night, the clouds rolled in, followed by a light sprinkle, and commenced with a harsh downpour. As a result, the network went down and my too brief conversation came to a halt. Soon to follow was the loss of electricity. I don’t know how or why, but when it rains here, electricity stops working, which more importantly means the fan stops working. It is getting hotter by the day here, and I don’t realize just how refreshing that lovely ceiling fan is until it’s gone. With the electrical world shut down, nothing could be heard but the sounds of crickets and other creatures looming in the night. In the distance, an occasional howl or bark could be heard from the boy’s dormitories as well. A car roared down the road and an occasional honk of a horn blared. The night was calm and serene. As I lay beneath my mosquito net, I almost forgot for a moment that I was in fact inside of a house. My room was pitch black, nothing but screens covering the windows, and I so clearly heard the crickets I swear that I could have reached out and grabbed one. Moments like those take me back to nights spent in tents at campgrounds at Turkey Run or the Illinois River with friends and family when the lights and sounds of a city were thousands of miles away. Just as sweat began to build on my brow, the fan began to swirl again and light returned to my quaint little bungalow. I then surrendered to my fatigue and drifted soundly to sleep only to await the 3:45am alarm for my tri-weekly jog along the streets of Bechem.