Rain

October 2012
Always, before a storm hits, the electricity goes and with it the wifi and the phone and the clackety clack of the refrigerator and other twentieth century devices.  Suddenly I am aware of silence as the village holds its breath and then far away the flash of lightening and thunder rumbles round the heights of Orkili.We do not get light rain here,  it does not drizzle, only sheets and pours as the flat roofs fill up and the primitive drainage system send torrents of water onto the narrow lanes and alleys of the village.  

When the storm is above and the thunder and lightening instantaneous the dark village feels threatened and I remember the catastrophe of the flood twenty years ago. Then,  I am gratful that I live on the side of a mountain as I sit on the first floor of my little house and the windows rattle and the doors shake and the air is full of rain. One day the sun will return to bounce blinding beams from the newly scrubbed houses and the fridge will rattle again and maybe there will be wifi and the ferry boat will come and if it is a special day the fruit man will appear from the south.