Strange Weather We're Having

One thing I’ve noticed about living in Cameroon is that everything seems more interesting—even the weather.  While the rainy season doesn’t officially start until October, we usually have at least a brief shower each day, although the word shower doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Being from Iowa, Brian and I are familiar with heavy rains, but this is ridiculous. 

When a storm is coming, you can watch it build for hours; the clouds get progressively darker and denser, and whereas Midwestern storms often move quickly over an area, these lumber along with a menacing sense of purpose.  The usually vivid colors of the landscape blanch beneath the looming clouds, and then all of a sudden it just pours.  Here’s a photo from our balcony during a recent storm—it looked like it was snowing. 

Even more impressive than watching it roll in, though, is listening to it: I’ve never heard rain this loud.  There have been several times during a class, when whoever’s talking just has to stop for a minute because they’re completely drowned out.  Often you can feel the pounding in your chest, like you’re at a concert.  This video doesn’t do it justice, but in my desire to somehow communicate the scale to you, I decided to post it anyway. 

I’ve always liked rain, yet the storms here are especially cathartic.  The air will feel warm and humid during the morning, but an afternoon shower washes it all away, and afterwards, everything is refreshed.  As a bonus, there are nighttime thunderstorms in Cameroon.  This may not seem that important, but it’s actually a fairly rare phenomenon, and it’s one of the few things here that reminds me of home. 

Another intriguing part of life in Yaoundé is the fruit bats.  Apparently, we’re at the beginning of the migration season (not sure yet where exactly they migrate, but I’ll find out), in what I would call the gathering phase.  I’m used to only seeing bats at night, and I’m used to them being fairly small; however, the ones here flap around in broad daylight…and they’re the size of crows. 

Near the end of our route to the grocery store and a local Chinese restaurant, there is a stand of trees that the bats flock to.  Each time we pass by, more have amassed, and you can hear them screeching at each other.  Again (and I sense this will be a theme over the next two years), the photo doesn’t quite capture it, but they circle around the tops of the trees and absolutely fill the sky. 

What look like bunches of dead leaves along high branches are actually hanging bats, as you can see from this zoomed photo. 

The day we realized that that’s really what we were seeing, we stood there with our grocery bags and full-on gawked.  We’re told the bats will continue to congregate for the next couple months, and then they’ll fly over in droves as they migrate.  Should be memorable. 

I need to get back to lesson planning, but I want to give you a quick summary of this past week.  From last Saturday to today (Saturday, too, although the post shows the date of the photo upload), I had a heart-to-heart with some embassy folks at the marines’ residence, let myself be talked into joining a teachers’ after-school tennis club and relearned how to play (read “how to hold a racket”—it’s been since 9^th grade), got my first it-was-cloudy-but-I-forgot-I-live-near-the-equator-now sunburn, received information at a teacher inservice about the procedures for civil-unrest drills, bargained for our first piece of Cameroonian art (an oil painting), went to a great little jazz club, discovered another gecko—this one above our bathroom window, bought several bolts of fabric in a store near the central market and met with a local seamstress (I can already tell this is going to become an addiction), and ate more pineapple than is probably recommended for an individual.  Brian and I frequently find ourselves shaking our heads at what our daily life entails.  Let’s just say there’s nothing like having to call the Saudi Arabian ambassador to inform him his son has too many late assignments to remind you that you’re not in Kansas anymore.  Sheesh.