Dear friend,
The first May rains fell as P and I were on our way to the car for a night out and I swear I could almost feel steam rise out of the concrete that had been beaten mercilessly, day in and out, with 34–36°C heat (one point short of a fever) in one of the most punishing warm summers of my life. I could almost hear the earth go “aaah” and, of course, all around was alimuom (is there an equivalent English term?), the sweet scent that mingles with the steam rising from the earth during rainfall—heady and addictive—one of my peculiar favorites. I felt a smile well inside me. A few days earlier, I saw my first gamu-gamo circling the dining room lamp and I realized that just as summer came early this year, so have the rains. The showers come everyday now—sometimes tentative, other times in torrents and even though I said in my earlier letter that summers excite me, I must also say that the rains bring me an altogether different joy. A sense of peace, a Zen-like calm, descends upon me during times of rain and often it makes me feel capable of loving everybody.
