It's Gonna Rain

Steve Reich, a minimalist composer, wrote a piece where he used the phrase "It's Gonna Rain". In it he looped this phrase and built a composition of 17 mins 50 sec around it. The phrase was taken from a recording of a preacher in San Francisco talking about the story of Noah and the flood. 

As I sat in my room on Sunday morning watching the heavens open and the rain come down this piece of music kept coming to mind. 

Being from Ireland naturally the rain is part of life, you put on a coat and get on with life. When rain comes here I love it. It feels like a little piece of home. Sunday though was different. 

I sat in the chair in my room with the door open watching the sheets of rain come down. I got a text to say that my new room had a flood in it, so went over to find that because I had left my windows wide open,  the rain didn't think about stopping outside the window. There was a leak in the ceiling and my newly painted walls had dirty rain marks down them. I was not happy and really asked if I had heard the call to Africa right! (this is often the first question when things don't quite go right for me here!). 

Having cleaned up my room and got a bucket for the leak I went back to the dry room and back to the nice chair. As I sat and observed more rain,  it suddenly hit me where I was and how petty I was being. 

I am in Mozambique, where in 2000 many lost their lives, family members, homes, possessions, jobs because of the floods. It really stuck me as I sat in what to many would be luxury - a room with a good ceiling and solid wall that many at this moment were in a straw huts, some with no roofs, others were on the garbage dump watching their small shelters being battered by the rain. Others where praying I am sure that the river bank would not overflow. Others were watching their piece of cardboard turn to mush in front of them. Really.... what was I complaining about?. I am incredibly fortunate to have only one leak and windows which I will remember to close. 

Being in the capital we are blessed to be fairly flood free, there are areas in the city where some of the roads are not fit to drive on but it's the provinces above us which are badly affected. The news reports this week about deaths during the rain at the weekend and the prediction for the rain this weekend does not help fear of more loss subside. 

I will enjoy seeing the rain here but now with the thought of how it is effecting others more prominently in my mind.