Rainy days

Hello lovelies, good evening and happy weekend to you all. This August has been like a rain festival, lol! This week has been cold with a trifling rain falling everyday. Today seems to be worse because since early hours, it has been raining with dull weather till now. Nobody has seen sunlight in my city today, this is a bad omen for those who don't have a drying machine but depend on the sun to dry their clothes. This time if the year comes with some disadvantages of:

Scarcity of firewood.

This is a serious problem in my village right now. During the rainy season, cooking can be difficult for many because there's little availability of dried wood and a high cost of firewood. Normally, there's always firewood around the bushes and farms, people would easily go fetch them and use them in the kitchen.

Another effect of the rainy season is the hike in the price of firewood. Sellers take advantage of this to add more value to the price of firewood because they know that people will demand for it so much: a good business idea for those who are interested.

People cook with firewood, sawdust from wood and even with charcoal, all are powered by wood except for those who can afford gas cookers and electric cookers. The majority in my village depends on wood and for generating cooking energy and is really disturbed by rainfall during the rainy season.

What we did about it..

Placing wet woods by the fire or hanging at the top of a burning charcoal is the best remedy for that. Cutting lots of wood and storing them indoors or drying them under the sun

Bad road

Since I grew up, there has been one major road that was graded and tarred. Since then, the government seems to have forgotten about the repair and management of the road. Right now the road is so old that during rainfall, it is hard for people to walk past it, let alone vehicles. This major road is in its bad state now. People try to avoid passing through it because of dirt and sticky mud which are always slippery. Anytime I visit my village, I try using the longer road to our house instead of using the muddy road. What it does to shoes and clothes is not good for hearing by the washing machine.

What we do about it..

When there are bad roads after rainfall, the youths in my village organize themselves and repair the roads, making it safer by creating water ways and filling potholes.

Cold and fever.

This is the most common problem associated with rainfall in my country. There's always a higher rate of sickness and diseases, both adults and children suffer from one sickness to the other. The last phase of sickness in my city was cough and fever accompanied by cold. So many people in my city suffered from that the past month. I was so lucky not to have suffered from any sickness or disease.

This fever might be due to high breeding of mosquitoes, or the too much consumption of cooked groundnuts or just any other causes. The record is always so high in seasons like this here in my country.

What we do about it..

Roots and herbs have forever been with us humans. It is a great blessing from nature. Here in my village, many people still believe in the power of herbs and roots more than they trust on drugs and medicines. When there's too much rainfall and people are suffering from its effects, grandma's and parents get roots and herbs and boil them together. They make it compulsory for the family members and this has been a source of relief from sickness and protection.

Rainfalls during ceremonies

This can only be well understood by experience. Heavy rainfall on the day of ceremonies like birthdays, marriages and other special events. It is really painful to the hosts because; people will not be able to leave their house under the heavy rainfall to do favors to your party. This has happened so many times and still will happen in the future in my village and city.

What we do about it..

In order to prevent this rain spoiling the day or the party, the host finds the solution of visiting the rainmakers and settling with them either by paying them to use their magic to stop the rain or by inviting them to be present at the party with a special welcome and treatment. By that, they would not make the rain but rather keep it away from falling. (This is African magic).

Thanks for reading and have a beautiful weekend.

Copyright ©️ Gianna-B, 2022 and all rights reserved

Lead image: taken from unsplash.com