7.) 24.07.08 Rain in the Jungle

Today was a brilliant day. It rained in the jungle. When that happens it seems to be party time. It is not like any rain I have experienced before, it is as if the sky was a huge pool with a trapdoor that opens all at once and the whole content falls on the earth. And that for at least several hours.
Waterfalls as wide as a person form at the edges of buildings are pretty good massage showers.
I played some water-mud football with the kids in the field, which is great fun. You can also slide on your belly (like we europeans do in the snow) and do butt-bombs in puddles. So much fun. Half the village gathers at the school to watch the "loco" german run around in the rain like a mad chicken. I sometimes think I must seem like a wired zoo-animal to them.
The other great thing about the rain is that you can put out all the water buckets and gather fresh clean drinking water for at least 3 days within minutes, which you would have to carry two miles from the spring through the jungle otherwise.
When the rain stops the whole jungle seems to lie in a mist of steam. It is as if the plants are breathing out and it condesates in the air.. The green of the plants looks even greener and it smells amazing. All plants seem to give off some kind of odour and after the rain it is much stronger. The whole forest seems like it is reborn, rejuvenated. I go run down my favourite jungle path to smell and touch all the newborn green.
The bad thing after the rain is that strangely the mosquito populations seems to have quadrupled within minutes. They like the cool wet breeze and come out in hords to feast on you.
By now I pretty much look deseased (as Alex the english girl described herself) - and have just accepted that that is the price to pay.