the rains came early

It’s raining this morning here in Bundibugyo …a welcome relief after nearly a month of hot dry weather. When I noticed the vegetables wilting in our garden two weeks ago I started carrying water down from the house to give them a drink. We’re blessed that our garden is all within a few hundred feet of our home. Most people here have to walk a good distance from home to where they grow their food, and then many do not have the extra time, energy, or access to be able to carry water to quench their wilting crops.

Normally, the dry season, which begins in December, ends sometime around the end of February or the beginning of March, but this year it ended in early February, some three to four weeks early. No big deal, right? …wrong. When the rains came, and then kept coming every day for a week, and then two weeks straight, people began planting their crops (our family among them). But then, as suddenly as the first rain had come that first week of February, the bright hot sun reappeared and has continued to shine right up to yesterday.

The prices of food in the market here have increased, and will continue to do so until this season’s harvest begins. Already stunted crops will not produce as much food this season because of the lack of water as the new seeds sprouted and then grew dry. If the rain doesn’t “stay” this time, there could be widespread hunger in the coming weeks and months. And due to the fact that many people are switching over from growing food crops to cash crops, there is already less food available and the prices are already higher than they have ever been before.

It seems tenuous, and it is, but it is also something of a way of life. Some people say that the unpredictability of the rains must be a result of global climate change… while others say that the rains were never that predictable, anyway. I’m not sure, but it is clear that every season begins with some risk for a farmer. Most farmers try to plan and mitigate their risks, but when you have a very small margin to begin with, any loss of production can have a big impact on sustaining ones’ family. Most families here have about 2-3 acres from which they must sustain themselves, cultivating by hand with a hoe and machete. Imagine planting one out of your three acres in corn and then having it all dry up and die just two weeks after sprouting. The near term ramification might be that you eat a lot of cassava (starchy, potato-ish, root crop… it’s where most of the starch that they used to put in my grandfathers shirts came from), and not much else until the harvest of the next seasons’ crop. Cassava is a good food, it provides lots of energy, but not much else. To be healthy one needs variety in ones’ diet…

So as the rain falls, we give thanks for every single drop and drizzle, and we continue to pray that it will come again tomorrow, and the day after that…