To Rain or Not to Rain; That is THE Question

We are on the cusp of rainy season!

This morning I awoke to a gray sky and it reminded me of home. Not too long after I woke up I watched as the clouds were moving swiftly across the sky. Moments later, the wind picked up and swirled leaves around on the ground that I just had cleaned yesterday. It was strong enough that it blew open my front gate, which I thought was firmly closed! And I could hear the quick patter and flop-flops of little feet running home, mixed in with the excited/nervous screaming of small people voices. And then slowly but surely came the rain. Single sounding fat drops that plopped against my tin roof. More and more drops fell and I retreated into the house and picked up a book, Angels and Demons and waited till the bulk of the storm had passed.

Then I decided I was hungry…and now I am in the process of making bagels. This will be my first ever batch of bagels. I will eat them with a packet of Lachs, (yes Lachs, not Lox; though I am fairly certain they are the same thing) that Catherine cadeau-ed me before she left. ***Thanks Catherine!*** I am currently waiting for the dough to double in size before making them into bagel shapes.

The rain this morning reminded me of a story. A couple weeks ago, Monday morning I was teaching my 6eme M3 class. It was just about 9 o’clock. I was quite irritated with some kids in class because they were causing me trouble and I was ready to cut out of class 20 minutes early. And as I was gathering my things together, I looked outside to see the blackest 9 o’clock sky I had ever seen! The humongous black cloud looked like it was ten feet off the ground and it was slowly making its way toward us. The air became quite chilly. The boys were pulling their arms into their sleeves and the girls were wrapping themselves up with the pieces of cloth they usually use to block the sun from their heads and faces. Everyone was rubbing their hands and arms to generate some heat. I felt nothing but bliss.

The big black cloud all heavy with rain made all the colors so bright and vivid! There is one particular type of bush that my school utilizes as a wall-perimeter around the school grounds. The flowers of this bush are a bright lemon yellow color. With the black monster as a background, I thought to myself that bush has never looked so green nor those flowers so yellow! How beautiful! And then moments later the wind was picking up. This was no little breeze. This was like hurricane wind, like The Wizard of Oz wind that picked up Dorothy and Toto and the Wicked Witch of the West. My students all at once ran to the other side of the room all the while screaming like four year old little girls. The rain was now pounding and the wind in full force. The roof in corner of the room where the teacher’s “desk” is, was lifting up! I for sure thought that the entire portion of the roof that covers our classroom was going to lift up. And it made such a terrible sound; quite the opposite lovely sound rain makes as it hits the tin roof. And then I found myself among my students huddled outside the classroom behind the safety of the wall. And I thought of myself as a mother hen huddled with her chicks caught in a rainstorm.

In other news, this past Thursday, I left the house perhaps a quarter to seven for my 7am class. I had let the dog out around 7:30am thinking that she would have come back before I left. But that dog is one clever little gal. She has a knack for knowing when I am in a hurry to leave. I figured she would be okay outside, running around, causing mischief while I was at school. I thought that I was out of her sight; and I hopped onto a zem. As we got to the highway, the zems waiting for customers all pointed behind us and said “eh, regarde…tchuku!” which translates to “hey, look…they dog!” Practically everyone in the neighborhood knows my dog and sometimes her name. I told the zem to stop. But most likely, he doesn’t know French and didn’t stop even though he saw that my dog was following us. JERK! I finally got him to stop after we were on the highway and Rosie was still following. She was a panting and looked a little disoriented (she’s never been to this part of the neighborhood) and a little excited and happy with herself. I managed to nab her and made the zem take us back to my house where I locked her in. Stupid dog! I ended up paying a little extra for my ride to school because of her.

And later in the morning, Basile, a kid from 6eme M3 who’s been absent from class recently came into my other class—6eme M2 to say hello. All of a sudden kids in M2 were all in an uproar of laughter as they told me to look at what Basile was wearing. Sure enough, I look down at his feet and he is wearing REAL wooden clogs! How in the world and where in the world did this kid get these shoes?!

Au Benin!