So humid that when I walk outside, my shirt is instantly wet and I feel I need a changing. And, so I don't walk outside much. I don't understand French civilization in Africa, where folks have been trained to take siestas in the middle of the day. In the modern era, this entails walking out of a perfectly air-conditioned building into the prime heat of the day to sit in scorching traffic before going home to a sweltering house, just so that you can have a meal, have a quick nap and then get back into traffic to come back to the office. Why not just pick up a sandwich, work inside during the hot hours, go home when the sun is lower in the sky and let your company pick up the electrical bill? Nonsense.
But today was different. I decided to work from home, and was camped on my bed under the air-conditioner, listening to the crows or pidgeons that have their residence on the other side of the wall unit, when a plunking replaced the feather-whisks and claws... rain! It hasn't rained in Djibouti since March, and then since November before that. I quickly threw on some clothes and ran outside into it. My floormate was doing the same, and soon we were dripping and laughing, shouting Mashallah and Alhumdillahi into the sky. Our guard was doing the same, from just inside the dry porch, and laughing at our antics, bewildered as we danced. My neighbor went down into the rain with her waterproof camera. She took waterdrops and puddles, and then took pictures of my neighbors. They each begged her for a photo, one after another. Her resulting photos are something out of another era. In each, a man stands beside the road. He is rigid and stoic, as rain plunks delightfully on his head. In Djibouti, an arid country in so many ways, it has rained!
