The Rains Have Returned!

Well, I'm happy to report that rainy season has once again returned! I'm less happy to report that the dry season was shorter* than it traditionally has been. I mean, it was great not to have the dry heat last for too long, but environmentally, it's not a good thing.

You will probably have come to know that I love rain. I've tried many times to capture it, but it just never seems to do the real thing justice. But this morning, as I was waking at the wee hour of 5AM**, I was comforted by the sound of a light rainy pinging off my window. Soon it progressed into a much more intense storm, complete with thunder and lightening.

Then the biggest clap of thunder shook everything in my flat, and set off all the car alarms in the nearby area. And that was when I knew it was time to get up to see if I could capture it!

Like always, the film is either grainy or just really dark. You can hear the rain falling, birds chirping, and occasionally some thunder in the distance. But then I struck gold - a shot I have been trying to capture for years! Here are a few of the screenshots:

You can hear the thunder, and really get a good sense of the bolt's impact*** in the video. Again, it's not the best quality, but it will give you a fairly accurate idea of what I was witnessing.

Anyway, here's to the end of the dry season, and the unpredictability of Ugandan rainy season 2.0! It's also pretty great that this big rain cooled things down a bit. Earlier this week it was +30°C... and super humid! There's nothing worse than being uncertain of whether you're just sweating a lot, or you've wet yourself unknowingly. Now THERE'S an image to leave you with...

-the Orange Canadian

*There are two rainy seasons in Uganda - from March to May, and from September to November
**Don't ask...
***Do the "Mississippi count" in between!