For much of the spring (September-November), many people in Lesotho were fervently hoping and praying for rain (some of the sisters at the school where I used to teach had gone for a pilgrimage to another mission to pray for rain when I went up there to visit back in August). People need it to loosen up the rock-hard ground after the cold winters here in order to plow and plant. They also need it to water the grass that the ubiquitous cows and sheep feed on. Lesotho is also just a much more pleasant place to live when the hills and mountains are green rather than the dull, dusty brown that comes with winter.
After much delay the rains finally came in mid to late November, about two months late but just barely in time for most people to still get in a decent crop for the year. We had wonderful summer weather for a few months, but in late January, it turned again. Since then we have had a period of fairly intense rain that is somewhat unusual for the region. Full days of rain. For two or three days at a time separated by a day or two of warm sunshine. This part of the world is known for its impressive summer thunderstorms, but not its full days of rain and low gray clouds.
It has made the summer not very hot. Many days here of late we are only getting up to 20 or 22 degrees C (around 70 F). Almost everyone I talk to has said that the rain is unusual and I agree heartily with them. No one can agree on causes, but many people have pet theories ranging from global climate change to the effect of putting two very large new lakes in the high mountains of Lesotho. No matter why it is coming, it has certainly breathed life into the fields of Lesotho and made the rivers, which can run to a trickle or even nothing in the winter, into raging torrents that flow over the low bridges built on the gravel and dirt back roads of Lesotho and take enormous quantities of brown muddy water and the topsoil of this country down into South Africa and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.
Stay well.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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