"I had a farm in Africa" - Blixen; "We live near it" - Padre

I decided that while we live here, I should read Out of Africa, especially because the Nairobi suburb of Karen, which is supposedly named after its author, Karen Blixen (although when you visit, there's another explanation for the name), is just a short drive from the neighborhood where we live. Last week while my sister was visiting us from Seattle, I took her to see Blixen’s house. (Yeah, I know – no need to ask me, “You hadn’t read this book before?” If you know me well, you know I’m not a reader, so I haven’t read many of the classics in my lifetime, although I have read Make Way for Ducklings, which takes place in Boston.)

I’m probably a third of the way through the book, and even though it was written some 70 years ago, I think many of the things she writes about are still accurate, or I’m learning many truths about Africa that still pertain to today.

There’s a line at the beginning of the book that says the rainy season starts every year on March 15. I read that section in early March, and I observed on March 14 that there was a very heavy rain. Since then, we have been getting heavy rains regularly. It seems to rain mostly at night, although yesterday morning when Jane arrived, it started to pour and continued for a while. Then, last night, it poured for a long time when we went to bed and again for a long time early this morning before we got out of bed. This isn't just a steady, average rain. It's usually heavy and solid for a surprising amount of time. Where does all this water come from (and where is it all going)?

Most of the time, when we're not trying to sleep, the sound of the rain is fun to listen to. In our house, the ceilings aren't insulated, and in our bedroom, we have a high ceiling with exposed rafters. So we hear the rain pounding directly on the roof over our heads in the bed.

We've learned that these are the long rains and will last a couple more months, and then later in the year we'll have the short rains. So instead of the usual winter, spring, summer and fall seasons here near the equator, we have the rainy and dry seasons.

With the rains have come slightly cooler temperatures, and it's now only between 75 and 80 degrees for our afternoon highs. Woe are we.

As an aside, I find it amazing that Karen Blixen had two of her books made into critically acclaimed movies, which is infinitely more than any author could hope for. These were Out of Africa and Babette's Feast. If you haven't seen Babette's Feast, which isn't as well-known as the other, I urge you to rent it sometime. It's got a great "Lutheran" theme.