Christmas to easter, petit été de Mars, then back from April to June.. Rainy season is long. Weather isn't just some changing background in your week.. It can decide days.
I'm sitting on the terrace. The air is heavy, the clouds huge and gray. The cloud breaks. I hear the rain begin proper as it hits one end of the roof. TATATAAATA above my head. TATATAATAA as it runs up one end of the corrigated plastic to the other end of the house. The rain surrounds everything. You can't talk. You can't hear music. Tatatatatatattatatatattatatatatttatatata. Heavy drops.
When I'm riding, the rain hits me with such force; like a thousand needles being thrown. Soaked in seconds, even through my coat. I carry a change of clothes under my seat.
You can't just ignore it. I've spent hours and hours waiting for the rain to stop some days. Sometimes it only lasts minutes. It can shape your day- you make arrangements; rain hits; plans fall through. Sometimes you wait for the rain to stop, delay, resign yourself to getting wet. So soaked. To the bones. After, that fresh smell of damp tarmac and earth. The roads dry. Puddles reflect the blue sky. The clouds here are beautiful; enormous. White, grey, deep blue purple. Towering, sky montains. They move quickly; you can watch them for hours without getting bored (I always tell them how beautiful the clouds are but I think my friends are not as enthusiastic).
Mangoes and watermelons are out of season, avocadoes are in. I've moved house, the mango tree next door is growing lots of new leaves and looks gorgeous. The new shoots are tinted a kind of aubergine red colour. Grass and whatever other things grow in the ditches get big so fast and surround with deep intense dripping green. At night, cars, frogs; crickets, the boom of the bass from neighbours' parties. In the day, the school bell ringing regularly from the playground next door, reprimands as la maitresse scolds and ridicules her pupils.
Cité Mortin; my new neighbourhood; is on the fringe of Cayenne, next to a swampy area. Clouds of mosquitoes. Mosquitoes that zip so fast you can't see them, mosquitoes that bite through your jeans, mosquitoes that you have to squish twice for them to die. The first night in my room I stayed up with the lights on watching them buzz along my mosquito net. There are three cats who appear at the door everytime I unlock the house to demand food, and neighbourhood boys come round to ask us for cigarettes.
Sista Sony, guyanaise musician
about French Guiana and other subjects; an exercise.
