When The Rain Comes II

The second* time it stormed I had visitors. Two of my secondary education friends who live in the city decided to try out a night of village life. The other trainees in my village (three at the time) also had visitors so we gathered in a group of about 10 at a my friend Yaneth's house.

The Burkinabé had known that it would rain. We promised that we would get back in time. Yaneth's home is technically next to mine and in the daylight you can theoretically see it across the peanut/millet/corn fields. Anyway, I had a general idea of where it was when I took my two buddies tramping off into the darkness and we got there just fine.

Yaneth's extended Burkinabé family gave us a very warm welcome. They set up mats for us to sit on and more mats so they could sit next to us. Eventually the two groups chatted separately in their respective languages as everyone enjoyed the fine night.

After only a half hour my friends noticed that the children (girls) behind us were calling me.** They were telling me that "the rain had come". Well, clearly it hadn't since I was still DRY. So I acknowledged the girls and kept on chatting.

A few minutes later they were calling me again, "Adjara, regards la pluie est venue". I looked where they were pointing and could not see a darn thing. Throughout the evening we had been watching the other part of the sky light up in silent flashes. It appeared to us that nothing had changed.

Finally, the young girls insisted that we go home. "Faut partir, maintenant. La pluie est venue." We said our goodbyes and began walking off into the dark. Thankfully both of my friends brought flashlights but we could still only see a few feet ahead. After a few minutes they noticed someone calling me. Why is it that everyone else notices when someone is talking to me? "Adjara, à droite!" They were telling us to go right. So, we started to veer a little bit more to the right.

"A droite, Adjara, à droite!!" So we veered a little more. Eventually the girls must have been a football field away monitoring our two dinky headlamps bob off into the wrong direction in the night... "A DROITE, ADJARA! FAUT ALLER A DROITE!" OK! We finally turned right.

Ten or fifteen minutes after leaving Yaneth's we arrived home and entered my hut. We dropped our things, thanked goodness and started to laugh. Of course, right then, it began to rain.


*Could have been the second time... but also could have been the third or fourth?
**Just a note: they were only a few feet behind us but Burkinabé girls (and children in general) tend to speak softly. Sometimes it takes a moment to notice when they are talking to you.