On Rain, Flowers, Egrets and Bats

Two nights ago it happened again.  It wasn’t time to wake up, but I was in that drowsy state of awareness you feel when you know something isn’t quite right.  I lay in bed, listening intensely, wondering if I needed to open my eyes and get up to check around the apartment.  And then it was there.  It started as a faint pitter patter, obscured by the sound of the blowing air conditioner.  Then the patter became louder, and then the familiar sound of water falling through the downspout outside.  It was raining.  Again.  The fourth time in two weeks.

The fourth wasn’t nearly as intense as the first.  The first happened during the day at work.  After lunch that day I was talking to someone, looked past them out the window and interrupted them saying, “Wow, it really looks like it’s going to rain outside.”  My college turned around and said, yeah it does, but no way, it’s the dry season.  Half an hour later it was pouring.  Raining cats, dogs, horses and elephants.  And yes, it is the dry season.

Wednesday night’s rain wasn’t really that bad.  Still, it was enough to create a few big puddles and have the dirt in them still moist today.  Thursday morning as I was leaving I turned to the guards and said, “It rained last night.”  That was enough to set them off on a tirade about global warming and how everything is changing.  “Early rainy season?” I asked.  “No!”  “An early rainy season is May.  It’s barely March now.  It never rains in March or April.  Something is wrong!”

Four times in two weeks.

It’s the dry season.  But the dry season isn’t just the dry season, it’s the hot season.  It seems strange to say that for a county whose highest temperature barely changes 15 degrees throughout the year, but it sure is different.  The sun is more intense, the heat a bit more oppressive.  Thinking about it, maybe our highest sun elevations are in March and September, not June.  Anyway, it’s the growing season, and more importantly, the blooming season.

I’ve noticed something about blooming plants here.  The flowers don’t last very long.  Sometimes they’re open for a day, then they dry up and fall off.  But then something interesting happens.  A couple of days later, maybe a week later, new blossoms.  They’re lucky to last a day or two, then the ground is left with colored flakes.  And a few days later, buds, and then blossoms.  I’ve been following a tree with orange blossoms and one with white blossoms.  Same pattern, though slightly different timing - the white blossoms are thicker.  I mentioned this to a colleague and he pointed to a tree outside the embassy.  “Watch that tree,” he said, “because it drops its leaves every three months and then two weeks later it’s full of leaves again.  

I’m watching.

I don’t know if the white egrets are learning from the bats, or just staking out their turf, but they like to hang out in a tree on the north side of the embassy.  It’s nice because when I’m on my cellphone, I walk over to a particular window to get good reception and I’m often looking at them while talking on the phone.  It’s a beautiful, huge, tree and when they’re there, you see a dozen or more two-foot tall egrets sunning themselves on the branches.  Occasionally one will join them, or one will take off, but they look content as can be.  If I had a camera with a hefty telephoto lens on it, I could get some amazing shots - the roof of the embassy would be the perfect place to set up a tripod.  

It’s strange though, because the tree is one of the bat trees, and this year, during one phone conversation I noticed that there weren’t any egrets on it.  Suddenly the tree exploded.  In a matter of seconds, one, then ten, then a hundred and then what must have been a thousand bats swarmed out through the branches, circling the tree for a couple of minutes, and eventually circling the embassy.  

I know I’ve mentioned the bats are back.  Now they’re back in number.  Think Mongolian hordes.  They’re occupying at least 4 trees at the embassy and two big ones right across the street.  When they get riled up it looks like something out of Batman the Dark Knight.  It’s truly impressive.  I’m glad I’m not terrified at the sight of them.  

The other day we were driving to a meeting and I looked off in the distance to the east.  Over another part of town I saw the familiar swarm.  If I hadn’t know better, I’d have thought it was a swarm of gnats right outside the car window, but it wasn’t.  It was comforting to know that the bats live in more than one part of town.

We’re back to the heart of the dry season.  Except for the rain.