Rainy season in full force

On Thursday it started raining at about 5pm. A storm had been brewing and my head was pounding from the humidity and the charge building up in the air. At one point I felt like the air around me was ringing with electricity, so it was quite a relief when the storm broke. I went to bed and it was still raining. I woke up and it was still raining. I showered and dressed and it was still raining. Pouring in fact. Coming down in sheets, with the wind howling. I set up work on my laptop and figured I’d venture into the office when the rain stopped. A few hours passed and I noticed the puddles around the windows getting bigger and bigger. I then realised that rain was starting to come through the cracks in the walls, cracks I hadn’t even noticed, and water was dripping down the insides of all my external facing walls.

Damage control. See the flood line on the partition wall -
it was sucking up the water

So I duly spent the day mopping up bucket loads of water, working and pacing the house watching the roads run like rivers outside. The streets were deserted and I could tell that the rain was keeping almost everyone indoors. It felt a little like being a prisoner, and I was just glad that I had enough food in the house to get by! At about 7pm Nicola and I decided that it was better to face the rain than pace around like caged tigers, so we dashed out in waterproofs and met for a drink, joined by our other friends living in Bakau who were equally fed up with being bored and mopping up their houses. The rain stopped sometime after 11pm… about thirty hours after it started!

The rain is affecting people’s homes, work attendance, mobility and comfort. It’s desperately needed, but it feels so extreme to go for 9 months with no rain and then face endless torrential rainstorms within a short space of time. The biggest impact, for me and I presume I am not alone, is the effect on market produce. Variety is limited here at the best of times, but going to the market at the moment is… well, depressing really! Last week I bought half a kilo of tomatoes, 6 onions, an avocado, 4 chillies and a quarter kilo of green beans, which I managed to stretch out to last all week. The tomatoes were green and small, and when I cut into them I realised that over half of them had spoiled and were black and vinegary inside. On Saturday I went to the market and managed to walk away with 2 sweet potatoes and one small cabbage. That’s it. The stalls were bare! Avocados seem to be the only thing in abundance, everything else is in very short supply.

I sound negative and I don’t mean to. I will get by, as will everyone else. I will find food to eat, and things will pick up in a month or so, inshallah. But it’s coming as a shock having spent the last month in England buying and eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Broccoli, spinach, salads, meat, fish, cheese, you name it, I ate it, whether it was in season or not. It’s so different living somewhere that depends on seasons and good weather for produce.

I can, however, get decent bread from the bakery, and after drinks on Friday night I called in to buy bread from the night workers. I was rewarded with a loaf of hot, crusty bread straight from the oven, which I took home and ate before going to bed.

In complete contrast, yesterday Nicola, Abdou and I went to the beach up by Poco Loco, and were later joined by Janneke and a few others. It was great – a day of sunshine and relaxation on a massive bed on the beach! Perfect! Apart from the fact that the thatch roof was missing due to the storms, you’d never have known it was rainy season. It was the best antidote to the wet weather, and really perked me up. It seemed I wasn’t the only one enjoying a chance to get out; the beach was rammed with Gambian families eating lunch and relaxing, boys playing football, and later on, teenagers strutting up and down in their finest clothes. Great for people watching, and a very chilled out day!

Where did the roof go?!

Busy beach and sea

Our giant bed on the beach