Here comes the rain again

The thing about this part of South Africa is that Spring and Fall usually last, oh, about a day. There seems to be little lag between the dry coolness of the Dry Season and the crushing heat of the Wet Season. Mother Nature flips the switch and you have brain-baking heat. Last year this time we were already boiling here in Satara with days consistently over 100 degrees and no rain is sight from the supposed Wet Season. In fact it rained all of once between when we got here in early September and the end of November last year.

This year couldn’t be more different. After being here a week, we have had two days of sunshine and only one day where it hit 104. Every other day has been blissfully cool and rainy. I’m even wearing a fleece. While the rain means cool days and nights, it also brings the savanna alive and that means green grass, flowers, and bugs. Lots of bugs. Last night I was awakened by a gigantic moth bouncing pinball-like around our tent. After a short chase around the tent, I chucked it out into the cool night and laid back down to be sung to sleep by the frogs - the other little critters that the rain brings out. Just outside the fence behind our tent is a pan (a depression in the savanna that collects water) where animals, especially elephants, congregate to drink. It’s also where the frogs put on their show. Every night after the rosy sunset fades over the Acacia trees the frogs start their chorus. There must be hundreds of them, and from only a few hundred meters away the chorus is deafening. You could only just barely hear the hyenas calling last night over the frogs. No matter the stress of the day, it is such a soothing, peaceful night to be sung to sleep by frogs.