No Complaints About Rain

Love the rain because I have a roof over my head. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be homeless.

We have a love hate relationship with the rain. We planned a summer wedding, then it rains. Cross country cycling? Oops! It rains. Promised co-workers to have drinks after work, it rains. We were going to help grandma with the harvest, but there was a downpour. Everybody has a story.

Kids in the house driving us crazy because we promised to take them to the park to play soccer. Not anymore. We need the rain so that food can grow, we try to placate them.

You are indoors because nature showed you who is the boss. What next? You can take advantage of the rain by cooking food you normally wouldn’t cook because you are take-out prince and princess. Cook Spanish paella or lasagna from scratch. No cheating. No raiding the store fridge for precooked stuff.

Bake some scones and invite some queen to tea. They call scones tea biscuits in North America. They were mama’s favourite rain food. She would prepare her wood stove and knead that dough, flour the baking sheets, cut the dough into nice objects and pop in the oven. Her kids loved her for many things including the warm aroma of baking, while it rained.

Rain should be celebrated because it nudges new life. We should not press the nose on the window pane and complain. In other countries animals die when there’s no rain, corn withers in the field and mothers cannot feed babies because milk is not coming out.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.