rain rain come and stay

The rainy season still hasn’t begun in earnest in my village. Rain here is so scattered that it can pour in Tamba and barely sprinkle on us, about seven kilometers away. Thursday night we had big puffy clouds overhead, lit on one side by the half-full moon and on the other by lightning from storms passing us on the north and east.

In Cory and Josh’s village, we watched a massive wall of clouds charge straight over us, bringing a cool wind but only a moderate amount of rain. But it sure looked impressive:

The first rains set off a flurry of construction in the village—the new batiment in my compound is almost completed, and my family both repaired my hut roof and built a shade structure in my backyard.

And while there aren’t clouds of mosquitoes yet, the flies are out in force and, even more exciting, nasty things like gargantuan scorpions are appearing:

This guy was knocking around one night in Aissatu’s hut, next door to me. Aissatu pinned him down with a stick and Mamadou cut his stinger off before tying a string around his tail and hanging him, still alive, from a tree. He dangled there, trying to take swipes at passing livestock, until the kids finally knocked him down and killed him later that day.

I’m in Tamba for Cory’s birthday and a regional meeting, where things were exciting for the Peace Corps regional med officer, who happened to stop by and, while he missed Glen’s kidney stones, had to deal with both a case of breakthrough malaria and Bandi’s infected shoulder. As best we can tell, his giant oozing wound was caused by his rabies shot—a dirty needle or maybe just general incompetence. Yet another use for duct tape: