What is it like on rainy nights? -The Experience

hamzat
Jun 1 2019 - 1 min read

505

The raining season in Nigeria varies from one part of the country to another just as much as the time the rain falls. The season is accompanied with winds, lightening, long drizzling days and sometimes heavy downpours. Most times, we know the months and days to expect rain, but how long the rain will last is usually the question.

Even the experience on a long rainy night varies, but it could simply be one or the other. You could be in the safety of your house or wherever you want to be tucked up (with tea; isn’t that the Nigerian culture?) while staring out at the window. Or you could be on the other end of the window swearing and begging the rain to come to a halt.

On the other side of the window, you could be stranded and tore between leaving the shelter of a wooden shop to join the mad rush for vehicles. Vehicles are scarce, so the price hikes. In the rain, you remember all that you could have done to leave your place of work early.

Trapped outside on a long rainy night, I pray for a saviour in any form. No one complains in the bus as wet bodies melt into one another while creating space for another. No! It’s not the usual day. Car owners become kings as they slow down beside the long queue to look for familiar faces.

The ditches fills up as water try to flow with the heap of dirt dumped into it. Though it struggles, bigger mountains of dirt collapse into it from the sacks held by thankful spirits.

Playful kids run into the rain and back indoor to be found at home by returning parents. Beggars scramble for shelter underneath shop canopies while some walk the walk home drenched. The roads you ply everyday display new looks with the gullies and ditches in them, that you simply assume they are about to form a pool. Sometimes, you even wonder if they were the roads you use everyday.

Skirt hitched, trousers rolled, you start skipping around, finding a safe place to land while listening to the melody of the frog croak and the cricket chirps.

The very next day, shop owners hand-pump stagnant water body right outside their shops onto the street.