Desert's Lament: Hope and Despair Amidst Nature's Fury

Wow! The sun is up earlier than expected. Its piercing rays remind me to be hopeful in these unprecedented times. When the cock crows, my clay house cannot conceal my shame from the world.

My family looks at me with awe. If my 2-year-old had a mature brain, he would have dared to question why he was born in such a home. My wife is neglected, and her skin is nearly wholly contoured from the lack of water and ongoing starvation.

The hunger situation has led to my dogs fleeing my house. Dogs are humans' most loyal followers. Yeah, they left—my Gizo and Biko. Sand collects outside my house as the heavy winds transverse the deserts and find “windbreakers” in my shredded, round Manyatta shelter.

Don’t look at my pans and cooking utensils. My cutlery. As new as the day. Stainless as never before. Are the ancestors really with me? Is my sacrifice acceptable to them? I have not eaten anything in four days, having to bargain between my life and my family’s. The storage units are forbidden and sacred because of their cleanliness.

I wake up from my threaded bed, my back close enough to acquire some bed sores from prolonged lying in it. There is no work to partake in, no food to celebrate, and no bad memories to keep. I exclaim, This is not what we prayed for. The schools are closed, and my children have no energy to play. My wife glances at me, grimaces, sighs painfully, seethes silently, almost drops some tears, and turns around to hide her face from me.

I am no fool. It’s Mother Nature doing her thing. Mid-morning, the clouds are far apart, indicating their unity to torment me more. I am like Job, ready to quit my faith—we aren’t supposed to commit suicide because it is a direct ticket to eternal hellfire. I dare not open my door for the horror awaiting my face.

All the material I called possession is separated: bones, skin, meat—nowhere to be found. All my cattle, sheep, and goats were wiped from the earth. There was no grass to feed them; the water wells were dried up and filled with filth; the wind hurdled the way; and the animal feeds were too expensive to procure.

My eyes are watery from the mirage of looking at the bare ground and contemplating murder silently. The stones shine superficially with a yellow tinge, and the smoke of burning bushes is seen. No breathing animals are nearby; even the harsh snakes are prevalent in these weather conditions. The earth doesn’t seem curved and falls off at the farthest point from my house.

It's almost midday, and signs of help are hidden. I remember waking up with hope and thus hoping for the best. It has been a day of deserts.

At around 6 p.m., clouds assemble on the horizon. Well, folks, brace yourselves for a cold night ahead. The whistling sounds of the winds disrupt any angle to acquire a hungry nap. The animal sounds like a nuisance as it comes to life in the hot afternoon.

At 8:30, the clouds had acquired the gray mantle of happiness. Is it what I wish for? Let Him be praised through the ancestor’s pleas. Well, the rain starts to pour. Not heavily before, but they began to run till 1 half-truth when they took a break, and for a while, I stepped outside to enjoy such freedom. There had been no rain in the past year and a half, and suddenly the showers were a sight. I couldn’t sleep, and neither could my family. How do you sleep when your prayers are answered? It’s time to rejoice.

The sounds of frogs are heard. They’re croaking in irritation to say Everything else is silent, except for the dropping trickles of rainwater. The rain grows in intensity and speed; it sounds like boulders descending a hill in a landslide. Puddles of water can be heard.

The thunderstorm may be termed angry, as it growls like a fierce elephant at the death of its child. The lighting strikes hard and assumes a screenshot of the heavens. Both combine to resemble a motion picture of tropical jungle afternoon weather.

Water starts swelling up at our door, and little streams form on the floor. All the dirt from the decaying animal carcasses is washed into our house as the heavy rains carry it. The earth couldn’t be thirsty any longer. It was filled with satisfaction.

The children are now awake, and their mother is delighted to see that the rain we had hoped for could be disastrous. It piqued her mind how we could have prayed for an excess of the blessing, never caring to specify that it should have rained for specific days, at what quantity, or even negotiating the speed of it!

We stood on the threaded bed and shakenly cuddled together as it rose to nearly knee height while standing on the bed. The sufurias could float and click against each other. I was expecting some frogs, but they seemed to have drowned too. I learned they were not the hype of excellent swimmers, just empty vessels with a handful of talent.

That’s when I reflected that we wished for the rain to quench our hunger and thirst during the day. Only for the night to be hijacked by floods of unwarranted size and measure.

Do we ever struggle so much for something that the moment we achieve it, we disdain it after our dopamine is temporarily satisfied? It ends up ruining our composure as humans. Are there certain things we tend to overdo when the opportunity presents itself? Well, the question of the deserted floods Misplaced identities are a loophole for living a lie. A lie that we promised ourselves about the nature of happiness, from the shadows of a half truth to the naked, hard truth. A fantasy too deep that I was in and knowingly liked compared to the harsh reality.

Let us not be like Gizo and Biko, who left at the first moonlight and tend to remain a little longer like Job’s wife, not for things to get better but to see how things will play out, just like the grandie who waits for the night to die peacefully. Tend to stay a bit longer.