Rain, Rain, go away, people are scared of you

Rwanda truly has the strangest weather pattern. One day you wake up, it is so sunny you’d swear it is noon, leave home for work only to reach halfway and a drizzle starts. Now personally, a little rain has never scared me but that is more than I can say for others.If it was some sort of hail/thunderstorm, I’d truly understand. But the slightest drizzle sends people scampering to anything with a roof. I stand to be corrected but I have noticed that as soon as a raindrop hits the ground, small businesses stay closed. I was more than shocked when I got to work one day and found our canteen closed for the whole day. Asking a colleague why that was so, she told me it was because of the rain. It drizzled till about 10am that morning and stopped! The hungrier I got, the more I cursed. When I left work, I decided to buy some simple groceries from the shop next to home. Imagine my frustration when a huge padlock was all that welcomed me! I called the chap and asked why he was closed and very humbly, he told me the rain! For the love of God, unless you do not really care about business, the only thing that should come between you and making money is if it is raining acid! So if it rains for a whole month, shops won’t open for a whole month too? Are umbrellas out of stock? That is all you need until you get to the nearest bus stop.Some people still come up with excuses like they don’t want to catch say a cold or pneumonia. If you wrap yourself up properly and use an umbrella, tell me where the pneumonia or cold will find you. That is just being lazy.Sure, we all try to find excuses so we can get a break from work but have a serious reason and not silly things like, ‘It was raining,’ when it was actually drizzling – probably for ten seconds. Awhile ago I stood at the road side waiting for a moto in the rain. Again, it wasn’t actual downpour; it was a simple breeze with bits of water in it. Believe me when I tell you I stood there for over thirty minutes as every moto sped past me, looking for cover. Naturally I would have walked to the bus stop, but it was too far away. Since the motorists assumed the world was coming to an end and therefore could not dare stop to take me, I angrily walked up to the bloody bus stop. So, I let me sing (hoping to be heard), ‘Rain Rain go away…come back another century, big people have to work so some of us can eat and move around!’ Of course the lyrics have changed!