Kuuliza si ujinga

[this was written two weeks ago. Since then, it's started raining! My buckets are full of water from my roof. Farmers are crowding into agricultural stores in town to buy corn seeds. I can hear the sound of tractors at night, as for some reason people like plowing at night. My neighbors have started preparing their gardens, as have I. Tunashukuru sana kwa mvua]

The farmers here depend on rain. There's no irrigation, and even the village water pipes run
badly when it hasn't rained for a while.

Usually,there are two rainy seasons: the short rains in December, and the longer rains in March.
The short rains should last most of the month of December, and maybe into January. They're long
enough that one can plant and harvest beans before the land becomes too dry.

This year, it began raining at the beginning of December. The water faucets started to run well.
The farmers plowed their fields and planted beans.

By mid-December, it had stopped raining. By January, the bean plants were all dead. No one harvested
beans this year.

It's dry and dusty in my village now. The water only comes out of the faucet quickly in the mornings.
Yesterday it almost rained: the sky grew dark and it got windy, so windy my formerly-thriving papaya seedling
blew over. But then the sun burned through the clouds, and there was no rain.

Now the time for planting corn is coming. The farmers in my area have usually planted
their corn, mbaazi, and sunflowers by the beginning of February. What if it hasn't rained by February? For
a farmer, crops are food for their family, and crops are money for their children to go to school. If it doesn't
rain this year, most of the people in my village will be in trouble.

Tunamwomba Mungu. At every church in my village, from the Catholics to the Lutherans to the Pentecostals,
people will be praying for rain.