Having grown up in Vancouver, I thought I knew a thing or
two about rain. Those long gray winters of endless cold downpours
are the main reason I fled my homeland in the first place.
But when it comes to rain, a monsoon is in a class of its
own. As I sit on the porch watching solid ropes of water pour
out of the sky, I often wish I had my father’s rain
gauge. There’s a certain element of one-upmanship in
this kind of volume.
After 15 years in the tropics I am getting to be able to read
a monsoon sky. Sometimes the clouds just pile up until they
can no longer hold their cargo, the humidity spikes and then
the rain comes down. Sometimes there will be a low, ominous
roar from the north that makes you look around uneasily. Then
the squall smashes across the garden in a wild rush of wind
and water. When it passes there is often a large banana plant
lying gracefully across the pond, or a papaya tree will have
succumbed to gravity beside the path. The puddles seep into
the thirsty earth in minutes.
The river in front of the house is at least 30 metres straight
down, running in a deep, narrow fissure only a few feet across.
So when we can hear it roar we know there must be an awesome
amount of water moving. Wayan recounts being marooned across
the river from her house when she was younger. She had crossed
it to gather some herbs in the sawah and a storm to the north
had swollen the stream almost to the top of its banks. She’d
spent a wet and lonely night in a hut in the rice fields,
listening to the raging water. The Balinese have a healthy
respect for rivers at this time of year.
In the past, the Balinese had an ingenious technique for managing
water. But building roads, shops and houses on sawah and across
natural waterways changes drainage patterns. Huge amounts
of water with nowhere to go follow the path of least resistance,
which is often a road. The hill roads around Ubud become rushing
brown rivers up to half a meter deep. The sensible part of
me knows this is dangerous, the other part wants to join the
excited children who are surfing the torrent and screaming
with delight.
I watch the shop girls along Jalan Hanoman push garbage into
the little slots that lead to the drain under the sidewalk.
The slots were made very small to discourage this practice,
so sometimes they really have to work at it. Under the sidewalks
the garbage piles up until a heavy rain comes. Then, of course,
the drains back up and the road floods dramatically. Urgent
men pull up parts of the sidewalk to claw out hundreds of
plastic bags, bottles and clots of old offerings. The flood
blasts more garbage across the road. Then the rain stops,
the sun comes out and the water miraculously disappears. Within
minutes, the shop girls are pushing the exposed garbage back
into the drains….
Wayan and I battle the mud, flies, ticks, leaks and other
monsoon peripherals remembering the long hot days when we
prayed for rain. But we don’t really mind, because a
whole new cast of characters comes on stage at this time of
year.
In the rains, the garden abounds in creatures. It seems to
be a particularly romantic time for toads. One often finds
a large, unlovely specimen with her little husband on her
back, presumably in a passionate embrace. A day later, they
are still at it. Sometimes there are three of them. Could
there be something about toad sex we are missing?
Small, delicate tree frogs begin to venture into the house.
They lurk in the shower, in unworn shoes and find their way
into open drawers. When disturbed they can leap like giants,
big eyes goggling.
Most amazing are the huge black and yellow spiders. Usually
there are one or two in the garden but then the rains come
there can be a dozen, each with her own large golden web.
She tiptoes across this like a dancer to welcome each hapless
insect that makes an ill-judged landing. Often there are several
tiny orange spiders on the web as well. Wayan likes to think
these are her children and that they are all living happily
ever after. She refuses to believe that the small spiders
are actually males, and that the brave one who finally succeeds
in mating with the matriarch will also be her dinner.
The pumpkin vines rampage across the garden, surging ahead
at about a metre a day. Maddeningly, the female vines are
a long way from the male vines, and the flowers seldom open
on the same day. In the rain there are few pollinators so
we undertake this delicate task ourselves with mixed success.
Among this jungle of juicy leaves we’ll be lucky to
harvest a couple of pumpkins. The tomatoes and lemons are
spoiling before they’re picked, but we’re gorging
on mangoes and durians instead.
And so it rains… and rains. There’s no point complaining.
Send a thought to the many places in the world where it never
rains at all, then go out and dance in the puddles.
