BIG rain and hope for Christmas

The rain has come – thank heavens.  The day before yesterday ‘Grande chuva’ – big rain, firstly 44.9 then 10.1, so 55 mm in all, in just two days. The heavens opened and the rain thundered so loudly it reverberated in every bone and I wondered if the roof might collapse!  Now there are rivers of sand in unexpected places and half the kitchen did collapse and was swimming with muddy water and straw. (I discovered all manner of hidden old packets - soup, flour, yeast, chocolate powder that were quite disintegrated.)

We have one light we run from the solar panel in the main all-purpose room, which serves as an office and our bedroom (which is rather misleading and grandly called the Reception). This light now brings in all sorts of insect life which has sprung from nowhere.  And the bit that I find wearing...the background buzzing has begun, a constant hum of unmelodic insect communication.  The noise mainly comes from those cicadas, Christmas beetles, and the hum will now build to an unbelievable and mentally disturbing crescendo as the rainy season really takes hold.

But despite the insect life, the most amazing thing is how quickly things change from dusty orange terrain with skeletal trees and ragged bushes to everything being touched by a verdant green brush – you can almost see the grass growing.

And the other mysterious thing is that the signs of pending rain are quite different here, black clouds are not a sure indication, they can pass quickly and may leave very localised patches of rain or nothing.  But when a ‘big rain’ is going to hit you just feel it, you feel like you have been hit ...over the head, I become so hot and lifeless and wonder what on earth has happened to me and then the large fat drops begin and slowly you are restored - like the dry land.

There had been a prolonged drought here for  6 years with between 700-900mm, a normal year has more like 1200mm of rain.  Last year saw some improvement and everything was much healthier.  And now I am really hoping that the rain continues over the next few weeks.  Dominik can only stop worrying about the animals being poached when the bush closes over from tangled new growth and becomes waterlogged and thoroughly alive.  Then the poachers sit in their houses and find other pursuits, including making their snares in preparation for the slow drying out and dying back in late March.

Anyway – rain is here, all is happier and it may even mean we can come to England for a relaxed (and very cold) Christmas...