I was starting to get worried. It was beginning to look a lot like April around here, hot and dry but without the cool relief of the Songkran Festival. Where were the rains? I kept insisting to the new teachers that it was indeed monsoon season but I was beginning to doubt it myself, after all a monsoon season without the monsoons is just a dry season right?
So June and July went by. We had a few sprinkles here and there but nothing of monsoon class. I reminisced about this same time last year when we were being prepared for the second coming of the great flood. I had enough food and water stored in my bedroom to keep me alive for a good week or two if needed. Now, the idea of a flood is far from anyones minds, or was…
Slowly the rains have returned. I can once again hear the screams of fright from my second graders as they react to distant peels of thunder. I actually quite enjoy these afternoon, and even evening thunder showers. The 3 am Hurricanes are a completely different story. Living on the top floor of a townhouse where the roof is questionable at best each drop of rain sounds like a tiny metal ball boring through the tiles, much like the sound my childhood Pachinko machine would make when I hit the jackpot. Combine this with thunder and lightening, literally right outside my window and it makes for a pretty sleepless night.
The next morning, when I leave my house I expect to see the ravages from this monster storm. You know, downed limbs, a flooded klong, maybe an orphan roof or two. Instead I find the sun shining brighter than ever before almost like it’s mocking me. At this point I have to double check with others that the night before even happened. Sleepless for them? Check.
Before we know it the rains roll in again and we’re doing crazy things like using the first floor of our new academic building as a slip and slide, adults only. Who knows what this monsoon season will bring if it’s just started and life’s already become so crazy. Maybe we really will have a flood this year…. sure hope not, don’t want to carry my couch to the second floor, it’s a monster.
