The Rains Have Come
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- Written July 2020
I must have been just about eight when I got into trouble at school because I’d tipped some water into what I thought was a bird bath. It was a kindly headmaster who not only thanked me for wanting to look after the birds, but explained why I shouldn’t tip water into a rain-gauge and asked me not to do it again.
Heavy rains could wreak their havoc. In Port Elizabeth we were warned of the flash flooding of the Baakens River. The nearby valley was out of bounds for us. I recall the family going to the Bridge Street crossing where the younger brother of a fellow-scout had been swept off the pedestrian bridge. Shall I ever forget seeing his father, stripped to the waist and wading through the swirling water, looking for his son? In those days the annual overnight car journey to Paarl and Cape Town took us through the Storms River Pass. I’d seen landslides, cars slipping over the edge and tumbling down the gorge. No wonder I couldn’t sleep. ‘Have we passed Storms River yet,’ I’d keep asking.
Our 1960s visit to the Middle East introduced us to much of its barren landscape, where Egyptians have cultivated a belt along the Nile, dependent on rainfall upstream. No wonder some of their ancient rituals were aimed at ensuring fertility of the earth. The same was true of primitive Canaanite religion. We saw evidence of that in Baalbek, in the Lebanon.
The Zambian years introduced us to real rains, mind you. After the build-up of the long dry months of early summer they started, heralded by thunder and lightning and then the torrents. Even the hospital corridors could become rivers. The Rains Have Come records a few memories. Yes, we did scoop up the flying ants that would drop under the street lamps. They’d be fried up for a tasty bacon-like breakfast. And I’ve sat on the banks of a river waiting for the flood to subside so we could get back to the mission after a long hard day in the baking Zambezi Valley.
The Indian years introduced us not only to the monsoon, but also the periodic cyclone. I still have a cheap pair of rubber flip-flops, bought when we flew into flooded Andhra Pradesh, Salvation Army houses, schools, churches damaged or destroyed, but mercifully with little loss of life. We shared the smell of decaying poultry drowned in the floods, wondered how to help supply palm leaves for re-thatching. They were in great demand, to say nothing of the need for basic essentials of food and clothing. We waded through flooded compounds, Margaret’s sari politely rolled up to her knees; we sat at the side of flooded rivers, just waiting; we shared the grief of loss as we tried to bolster hope. But the overall impression that lingers is the resilience of a people who’d faced one disaster after another. They were out and about as soon as they could, ready to start again. A major rebuilding programme occupied us for years.
When it came to our own house in Madras, we were told there was no way we could avoid flooding. Margaret was not to be defeated. For one thing, the piano needed to be protected. Back and front doors were sand-bagged, and I set the alarm though the night for a two-hourly check on flood levels and unblocking drains. The piano survived!
We returned to Zambia for a brief visit in 1985. We paid a courtesy call to the local chief. Conversation ranged across his duties, traditional, cultural and ceremonial. We got onto the subject of the ancestors and their role in ensuring fertility of the land. He offered to demonstrate his rain-making ceremony. We watched as he laid an axe and a few spears on the ground, summoning a couple of drummers to set the rhythm as he danced with his earnest incantations. Interesting! We thanked him and left. It was winter and supposed to be the dry season, but halfway home and we get stuck in the mud as we drove back in pouring rain. The local farmers were irate. Their crops, about to be harvested, were ruined. News got out. ‘What has du Plessis been up to with the chief?’ was the question.
No rain-making here these days. We’re just trusting the weather forecast so that I don’t need to get the garden hose out this evening. But that probably means another ‘rain stopped play’ day for the first lockdown test in Southampton. But they say ‘with sunny intervals’. When the sun comes out during rain, and drawing on a Zulu legend, South African English speaks of the monkeys’ wedding day. No monkeys here, but you never know what could happen. A rainbow will suit me.
July 2020.