The Humidity is Making My Ice Cream Melt

Swaziland, in addition to holding the record highest HIV, TB, and possibly moonshine consumed per capita, also has the highest amount of lightning strikes in the world.  I think I mentioned that its the rainy season now, which usually lasts from about November/December through early February, and this tiny little country is more than living up to its statistics.

The storms here are wild.  In South Africa I thought they were something, but here I feel like I've moved up to a whole new level.  Like I've moved into a house that doesn't have a metal roof and so might not be immediately singled out for a lightning strike and so the weather gods decided we need to kick it up a notch.  (bam).

There's a good storm starting up right now, as I write.  I'm sitting at Mantenga Lodge, which is basically my office, and staring up at execution rock while the thunder gets ready to really make a statement.  I've been chatting with a pair of Austrians one table over about their vacation through South Africa and Swaziland, and on the inherent 'awesomeness' of the house brownie.  (Its certainly awesomely large.)

I like sitting here and watching the storm.  The thunder is a constant rumble, there's never much of a break between rolls, and it feels like its coming from all around us.  Intermittently there are flashes of lightning from behind the clouds and around execution rock.  You always know when a storm is coming here.  The air gets so thick -- mere humidity doesn't even begin to describe it.  I think a few years ago I wrote about how it would twist and press and wring itself into such a tight, full feeling that there was nothing it could do next but explode.  Here that still holds.  It presses itself onto your skin, invades your lungs and your hair and your living room.  You have to push through it to walk up a hill or out of a building.  It gets hot, too.  Miserably, horribly hot.  While I admit that I am a giant whiner when it comes to any temperature below 65 degrees or above 85, I think its still too hot for any rational person to be happy with.  I carry my lime green umbrella around with me everywhere.  In the insane heat it gives me a little bit of shade, and when the intense rain inevitably follows, well...then it protects me from that too.

Now the storm is really going.  The lightning flashes are getting more distinct.  When they get really close they become so clearly laid out that you can almost see each little tendril of electricity shooting out in search of anything it can find to make contact with.  It is cinematic.  The lightning comes in a spectrum of yellow, green, purple, and orange tints, all on top of the same almost sickly shade that I can only describe as what electricity looks like straight.  Or maybe its just my eyes that create that impression, like they need the color for a chaser after such a powerful shot of straight light.

After the thunder and lightning have made their points for a while, the rain gets started.  And it can start fast.  Today it looks like the most of the downpour might end up somewhere else, but on days when it does decide to come down on top of you -- look out.  The rain will slam down with a crazy intensity for about 20 or 25 minutes, and then let up and vacillate between proper rain and a mild drizzle for the next 24 hours.  Like it took so much effort to get out there, and put so much work into the initial downpour, it doesn't want to just walk away afterwards.  I can respect that.

Now it looks like we're back to the light drizzle phase.  Looking out at the mountain again, its become disgustingly beautiful here.  The sun has begun to shine through the clouds, but there are wisps of cloud and fog drifting around the peak of Execution Rock.  (The Austrian tourists, having finished their awesome brownies, are having a photography fest.  Good call, Austrian tourists).  The mountains are full of granite outcrops and slopes, and those have all transformed into impromptu waterfalls.  Which the sun is intermittently shining onto and highlighting one after the other.  The thunder is still coming and going, but it seems as if for the moment the storm has decided to direct itself elsewhere.