It was a dark and stormy night...

After a winter of uninterrupted clear blue sky, towering cumulonimbus storm clouds have been appearing over the last two days. Two nights ago, the first day of the clouds, we had some friends over for supper and some games. During the evening a number of storms passed close enough to the village to see lots of lightening and hear deep rumbles of thunder, but not close enough to get any precipitation. In addition to the stormy atmosphere outside, our power was also out for most of the evening. The power cut was not related to the weather (this was the fourth evening without power in two weeks) but mandated dinner by candle and lantern light which added to the stormy ambiance. So, we were sitting inside, windows and doors wide open trying to introduce some cool air into a room being heated by eight bodies and seven flickering lights. Finally, after an hour or two of sweltering heat, a puff of cool wind finally moved through the room and the approaching rumble of thunder promised the further cooling effects of the rain. Within minutes the puff of cool wind changed with startling rapidity into a breeze, then into a wind, and further still into a gale. We rushed to close doors and windows as the house filled with dust being whipped off the parched ground by the raging wind. With the house sealed as much as possible against the gale we were just sitting back down at the table when a strange and sustained roll of thunder became audible. We cheered briefly, believing it to announce the arrival of the rain but that quickly died out as we realized it wasn't thunder or rain on the roof. After a moment or two of listening Travis, one of the other pilots, announced "Sheet metal". We were listening to sheet metal, probably roofing flying through the air colliding with other airborne sheet metal and objects on the ground. A minute or two later, the wind died completely and the storm drifted by to the south without leaving so much as a single drop of rain in Mmopane.

The next morning I was awakened early by the pounding of hammers and the scraping of sheet metal being moved around right next door. After getting dressed, I walked outside and found myself gaping at the roof (or lack of roof) on the general store right next door to our house. The gust front from the night before had literally ripped the entire roof off the store leaving nothing but bare rafters. I walked over to the store to examine the damage only to find that a good portion of the ceiling inside the store had fallen in as well, pulling down lights and smashing glass display cases. The owners of the store and their employees were busy cleaning up the wreckage and sorting usable sheet metal from stuff that was too mangled to use over again. I had some running to do in the morning but when I arrived at home later that afternoon they were still very hard at work trying to get the roof ready to resheet. Changing into work clothes, I walked over to lend a hand. They happily accepted and I spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening manhandling sheet steel into position and tacking it into place. We nailed down the last bit of ridge vent by floodlight, a good two hours after the sun had gone down. While the roof was by no means compelete it would've shed most of the water in the event of a storm. In the end I only spent 4 hours on the roof, but by the end of those four hours I was utterly exhausted. I have no idea how the men I was working with were able to keep moving so fast and working so hard after 16 hours on the roof, with much of it in 100 degree heat.

Working by day...


... and by night.

As I write this I can hear the banging and screeching next door as the owner and his employees put the finishing touches on the new roof. And while the rains have begun in Botswana we still have not seen a drop of the precious liquid here in Mmopane. I'm beginning to understand why the currency here is called the Pula - it is also the word for 'rain'.