PITTER PATTER HERE COMES
Close the door;. shut the windows; here comes the rain, pitter patter, pitter patter; here comes the rain! Sounds familiar? That song we sang as kids when the skies would break open? If you ever were a kid, you know what this is all about.
By Elvina Nawaguna
Close the door;. shut the windows; here comes the rain, pitter patter, pitter patter; here comes the rain! Sounds familiar? That song we sang as kids when the skies would break open? If you ever were a kid, you know what this is all about.
Just weeks ago, there was alarm about a looming drought. The Lake Victoria, we are told, has lost up to three metres of water after Uganda had been “nipping more than the agreed amount of water from the lake.
“Stock up on dry foods; There is going to be a time of lack,†a friend warned.
When the price of tomatoes in markets shot from five healthy tomatoes at sh500 to two measly berries for the same price, doom seemed to have arrived.
Everywhere there was a whispered wish for rain. The Born-agains, always optimistic, take the place of the rest of the nation at such times and pray till their knees become like camels’.
Hoorah, now the rains are here. Maybe the Born-agains prayed, maybe they didn’t, but God seems to have let open the floodgates of heaven.
Scientists use terms like evaporation and condensation and the cycle repeats itself to explain our showers. But as children in the days of yore, rain was a different thing altogether; some kind of unfathomable play tool. We didn’t care about floodgates or evaporation. In our innocent minds, God was crying and his big tears were dropping on us.
The children with bad manners used to say God was urinating. Right now, we are thankful that the God that the children believe in doesn’t use handkerchiefs or tissue for that matter.
Today, as I make my way across the streets, in vain dodge of heaven’s tears, I am filled with a profound sense of nostalgia.
And there are hundreds of people out there who share in the memory of the things we did as children when the rains came.
While big people took off for shelter, we, the children, screamed at the top of our voices, hoping and jumping against the winds that heralded the storm.
“Helter skelter, run the children, for they love the approach of the rain,†David Rubadiri put it best in his poem, African Thunderstorm.
As quickly as the nimbus clouds gathered, we would lose our clothes and slip away from mother’s watchful eye to join the rest of the neighbourhood kids in celebration of God’s tears.
Those of us who were privileged to have verandas found a convenient ‘swimming pool’.
The rain made the veranda wet and slippery enough for us to hold swimming championships, dragging our naked bellies across the wet concrete.
A red tajiri underwear here, a green one there, worn-out boxers and a few Adam’s suits savouring the rain, knowing that ahead lay kiboko from Mama, a shiver and possibly a fever and then injections. Somehow, the consequences were pushed aside. Fun first, tears later.
Funny how years later, when puberty put a premature end to our innocent play, the girls start hiding the twin molds on their chests from their male playmates.
Oh, how I turn navy blue whenever I bump into one of my former naked male playmates in an office here or street there. We both know what our now big “things†once looked like before they blossomed fully.
Then, there was the game of jumping in puddles of muddy water. Who could jump hardest and plash highest?
How many cans of worms we accumulated in our bellies from these dirty games, only mother and doctor ever got to find out.
We would lift our faces to the leaking clouds and enjoy a heavenly drink, salted from the old sweat on our faces.
Aah, what a divine drink that was.
Now, even in my twenties, if only for a nostalgic experience and perhaps gratitude to the God of the children, the Born-against and all those who believe in a higher power, for refilling Victoria, soaking up Kampala’s dust and forestalling the drought, I lift my head to the skies and drink of His tears.
And when a drop of His tears lands on my oily nose, with my tongue, I draw the salty bead; the divine drink from old.
Yes, for a while, we can now forget the dust, the panic to stock dry foods, pray for the refilling of Lake Victoria and hope that Saida Bumba will become a nicer name on our lips, because pitter-patter, the rains are here.
Close the door;. shut the windows; here comes the rain, pitter patter, pitter patter; here comes the rain! Sounds familiar? That song we sang as kids when the skies would break open? If you ever were a kid, you know what this is all about.
Just weeks ago, there was alarm about a looming drought. The Lake Victoria, we are told, has lost up to three metres of water after Uganda had been “nipping more than the agreed amount of water from the lake.
“Stock up on dry foods; There is going to be a time of lack,†a friend warned.
When the price of tomatoes in markets shot from five healthy tomatoes at sh500 to two measly berries for the same price, doom seemed to have arrived.
Everywhere there was a whispered wish for rain. The Born-agains, always optimistic, take the place of the rest of the nation at such times and pray till their knees become like camels’.
Hoorah, now the rains are here. Maybe the Born-agains prayed, maybe they didn’t, but God seems to have let open the floodgates of heaven.
Scientists use terms like evaporation and condensation and the cycle repeats itself to explain our showers. But as children in the days of yore, rain was a different thing altogether; some kind of unfathomable play tool. We didn’t care about floodgates or evaporation. In our innocent minds, God was crying and his big tears were dropping on us.
The children with bad manners used to say God was urinating. Right now, we are thankful that the God that the children believe in doesn’t use handkerchiefs or tissue for that matter.
Today, as I make my way across the streets, in vain dodge of heaven’s tears, I am filled with a profound sense of nostalgia.
And there are hundreds of people out there who share in the memory of the things we did as children when the rains came.
While big people took off for shelter, we, the children, screamed at the top of our voices, hoping and jumping against the winds that heralded the storm.
“Helter skelter, run the children, for they love the approach of the rain,†David Rubadiri put it best in his poem, African Thunderstorm.
As quickly as the nimbus clouds gathered, we would lose our clothes and slip away from mother’s watchful eye to join the rest of the neighbourhood kids in celebration of God’s tears.
Those of us who were privileged to have verandas found a convenient ‘swimming pool’.
The rain made the veranda wet and slippery enough for us to hold swimming championships, dragging our naked bellies across the wet concrete.
A red tajiri underwear here, a green one there, worn-out boxers and a few Adam’s suits savouring the rain, knowing that ahead lay kiboko from Mama, a shiver and possibly a fever and then injections. Somehow, the consequences were pushed aside. Fun first, tears later.
Funny how years later, when puberty put a premature end to our innocent play, the girls start hiding the twin molds on their chests from their male playmates.
Oh, how I turn navy blue whenever I bump into one of my former naked male playmates in an office here or street there. We both know what our now big “things†once looked like before they blossomed fully.
Then, there was the game of jumping in puddles of muddy water. Who could jump hardest and plash highest?
How many cans of worms we accumulated in our bellies from these dirty games, only mother and doctor ever got to find out.
We would lift our faces to the leaking clouds and enjoy a heavenly drink, salted from the old sweat on our faces.
Aah, what a divine drink that was.
Now, even in my twenties, if only for a nostalgic experience and perhaps gratitude to the God of the children, the Born-against and all those who believe in a higher power, for refilling Victoria, soaking up Kampala’s dust and forestalling the drought, I lift my head to the skies and drink of His tears.
And when a drop of His tears lands on my oily nose, with my tongue, I draw the salty bead; the divine drink from old.
Yes, for a while, we can now forget the dust, the panic to stock dry foods, pray for the refilling of Lake Victoria and hope that Saida Bumba will become a nicer name on our lips, because pitter-patter, the rains are here.