Thunder and Lightning

It rained in my town over the winter. And in the spring. Never a lot. If you go by the definition of a desert as receiving less than 10 inches of rain per year, then I live in a desert, which, as you probably already know, is the Sahara.

I talked with this one guy in Marrakech months ago and when I told him in which town I live, and that it's in the Sahara, he replied that my town is not in the Sahara. And then he mentioned the name of a town where the landscape turns to nothing but sand and human construction ends, and he told me that that's the desert. However, according to the definition of a desert which is delineated by the amount of rainfall, I live in the Sahara.

But I digress. As I had been saying, it rained in the winter and spring. I had been figuring that now that the summer has arrived, we wouldn't have any more rain until the end of the year, if not the beginning of next year. I was teaching an English class with one of my better students recently, when I then saw that it was raining. Since I hadn't been expecting rain, I was definitely surprised. I used the occasion to introduce him to the phrase "I couldn't believe my eyes."

Something else I didn't expect in connection with the rain here: thunder and lightning. While I grew up experiencing thunder and lightning, there wasn't any in California, where I lived right before I moved here to Morocco, so I had been missing it when I lived in California. And, since I had been missing it, I enjoy it now when I get to experience it.

In addition to being unexpected, the rain now is a welcome relief from the heat. While I haven't been finding the heat oppressive, the rain is nevertheless refreshing, since it cools things down. Indeed, these days, when it starts raining, I'm often glad if I happen to be outside because then some of the drops fall on me and help me to cool off a little bit.

At the same time, though, the heat hasn't been bothering me very much, I think partially because I was expecting it to be hotter by now. I mentioned to a friend who's another PCV in Morocco, who's in his second year of service, that I'm surprised when I suddenly realize that my back is drenched in sweat. He replied, "So the heat is affecting your body more than your psyche." I thought that that was a good way of putting it, which also adeptly described how the heat affects me where I live.

But to look at another facet of the heat in my life now, though, I must admit that I sometimes now decide not to go outside because it's hot out. So while I haven't been finding the heat unbearable, I also wouldn't say that it has been having no effect on me.

Of course, I certainly have been drinking more water lately. With the guidance we have received from Peace Corps medical staff, I know that I've been drinking enough water. I just find it remarkable when I drink gulps and gulps of water one after another. And that despite how much water I drink, I urinate only a little. However, I know that both of these phenomena are due to how much I'm sweating out of me. Knowing that I am sweating as much as I am, I consequently and consciously drink a lot of water. Even though the heat hasn't been as bad as I expected it to be, I still am respecting the desert and the attendant heat, and taking care of myself accordingly.