Rain in Rundu!

We have finally experienced rain, after being in Namibia for 5 ½ months! This has been a dramatic change compared with Vancouver where rain is the norm. Our first few months we had bright blue skies everyday. Then as the ground became drier, the air and sky filled with dust. The horizon was no longer clear and the sun would disappear in the dust, rather than set. Then about a month ago we started to see beautiful fluffy white clouds, which have progressively become darker and more ominous. So what does rain mean for our lives in Rundu?

*After a short rain, you can actually smell the flowering trees, instead of dust and burnt garbage.
*Thunder storms are so loud you think your house will crumble
*Lightning shows that would rival any I grew up with in Ontario
*Laundry becomes a trickier task as we use a clothes line (this will be my nemesis I know it!)
*I had to figure out where the windshield wipers were on the car because I hadn’t used them yet.
*A break from the stifling heat! Rain is usually so welcome here because it can bring the temperature down from the 40’s to the 20’s…BIG difference.
*The pot holes on the roads get much worse.
*Bugs, bugs everywhere, of all sorts and sizes. Back onto the Malaria pills…
*Not sure yet how this will affect our OVC project. We are trying to complete the kitchen in the new building so the cooks can prepare inside. As of now, they are cooking huge pots of pap outside on firewood. We will also need to come up with some indoor games for the kids - not sure how we will keep 180 kids organized in a small building…
*Rundu has already started to look a little more green and less brown, and hopefully our water bills will be less because our gardener won’t have to use so much water!