Thursday 17 July 2008

Day 20 (Cont'd): Rain


It rained hardcore today around 'asr time, just after I finished writing the previous entry.

SubhanAllah the weather changed in an instant. I was asleep the first time it rained while I was here, so I didn't know it could be like this. I've seen it rain buckets before in England, but this was a rain that rivaled even that rain, simply because of its rarity. It got gloomy, the temperature dropped, and the sky opened.

I went up to the roof and it was raining so much I could literally wring my abaya from how wet I got. I relished the rain and the big fat cold water droplets—how is it that an hour before it was so hot you could fry an egg on your face and then suddenly get so cold you're chilled? There was no lighting, but thunder rumbled over and over again, and somehow it seems so much more majestic when you're surrounded by mountains on all sides.

People all around us were up on their roofs—some turning their faces upwards towards the rain, others lifting their hands towards the sky and making du'ua and others still being more practical and using the water to clean the roof. We, on the other hand, got a tambourine and starting singing Ta'la al badro 'alayna.

And then 15 minutes later, it stopped as suddenly as it began, a wind began blowing, and the temperature climbed back up. I went outside and it smelled like rain and dust. All the sand had turned to mud, and children had all gathered to play in it. Kids will be kids =)



A thought just occurred to me—it rained today on Day 20, the day we crossed the half-way line. Half my time in this idyllic place is over. The moon today is also a full moon—when we came it was still a crescent, I remember looking at it when I was on Habib Umar's house in the mountains and thinking of how the month was still beginning. Time goes by, unlike what Madonna thinks, so fast.

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