Allow me to introduce you to the rainy season. Generally between April and June, Kenya experiences torrential rain fall, on a daily basis! For the local farmers who are desperate to grow profitable crops, the formation of dark clouds will bring tears of happiness to their eyes. For everyone else, life becomes nothing short of a disaster! This country was not built to deal with heavy rain and hence hours of hammering rain on sheets of rusted tin tend to take its toll.
‘It’s the rainy season… it happens every year,’ one man informs me. ‘I didn’t think it rained in Africa,’ I would reply.
‘El niño is coming…’ another woman screams as she sprints past me with a plastic bag tied over her head. Is he a Politician…? I wonder to myself, whilst drawing out my Lonely Planet guidebook.
Driving becomes an art form when the rain arrives. The dust turns to mud and the public transport becomes unhealthily over-populated. The combination of mud and window condensation transforms the main road of Kisumu into the first stage of the annual Safari Rally. I believe my matutu completed the distance with one of the fastest times yesterday… One must become accustomed to the proverbial African rainy day. Surely not that difficult coming from N. Ireland!
Despite the inconveniences brought by hailstones the size of small golf balls, the Kenyans always seem to find the funny side. Water dripping onto a brand new laptop or the commute home being delayed by two hours can’t be anything but funny… can’t it?
When buying an umbrella this week with a head shot of Obama on top, the guy at the till exclaimed, ‘This is our President…’ Now that I think is funny! I quietly corrected him and was on my way to join the second stage of the Safari Rally.
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