The first rain for the year landed some time back; I cannot really recall the very day, but I know I was outside, and I didn't rush inside immediately. I just wanted to feel it, though it wasn't heavy rain. I just stood in my compound and let it touch my body before finally going inside the house.
If you haven't experienced what dry season feels like over here, I am not sure if you can relate to how I felt that day. The heat here doesn't take it lightly on us. In fact, some people will say, “Who opened the gate of hell?” just to quantify how intense the heat is. The heat sometimes starts in the morning, follows us everywhere we go like the MTN network, and makes fans feel like they are redistributing hot air rather than cooling anything. And one is always sweaty and very exhausted from it.. Imagine sweating in the middle of the night even after showering multiple times.
Sometimes even before the afternoon, one shirt has made peace with the back, and they've decided to stay together permanently.
So now that we are in the wet or rainy season, the temperature of everything doesn't change alone. It changes something psychological. Everywhere looks calm, no unnecessary heat, the air smells different, and there is no dust everywhere. That calmness and this specific smell of rain that is always meeting the earth is something incredible that I honestly always look forward to every year, and I cannot explain that feeling to someone who doesn't know it. Some will say petrichor, this is a word I recently got to know, even though I had been experiencing the feeling long before knowing it has a vocabulary name.
Though the roads can get muddy. Something NEPA usually takes the lights if the rain is much. Some insects, like mosquitos starts flying around. None of these things can affect the inward and outward feeling when it finally begins to rain and everywhere is free from extreme heat that we have been stuck in for months. And that is why some relief doesn't need to be perfect to be welcome, and I am sure that a lot of my country people can testify to this feeling.
Thank you for reading.
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