It rained! Ka mpfula ngopfu!

I left my village for a few weeks over the holiday, and when I came back, it didn’t even look like the same place!! The rain had come!

Before Christmas, my village was a desert. Almost everything was a shade of brown except for a mature tree here and there, and everything was dry. Last year hadn’t really brought any rain, and in a place like this, a yearly rain is desperately needed. The drought in Southern Africa is really, really extreme right now, especially in places like Giyani. It was becoming common to see cows dead of starvation on the sides of the road, and almost no one could sustain small gardens for their families. My host mom had told me that she’d never seen the village so dry, and that she was worried about what we would all do for water. Even the reservoirs were beginning to dry up. It had rained once or twice before I left, but the only real change was the presence of the cicadas and some other bugs.

My walk down to the dry riverbed before the holiday

But, when I returned from holiday, everything was green! The bush, formerly dry and brown, is now a rich medium-dark green, which is showing up a bit lighter in the photos. But it’s the kind of green that catches pitch-black shadows and also filters some soft sunlight, so all of a sudden you’re looking at what feels like all the greens in the world. It’s also newly hiding colorful birds and little explosions of butterflies, which makes the whole place feel like a little Eden. The sky, instead the old uninterrupted blue, is now filled with big fluffy, sometimes wispy, white and gray clouds, holding promises of even more rain. The ground is cracked, muddy, and rerouted, a triumphant reminder of the rain that passed through. People, including my host mom, are now growing small plots of maize, sustained on rainwater alone! And there’s grass! Thick, healthy grass, not just dirt! Apparently, this kind of greenery up here used to be normal, but has become rare with the drought. My host mom said they got A LOT of rain while I was gone. So much so that the river even has some water in it! Yay!