After the rain

Look what a little (okay, a lot of) rain will bring.

It rained on Thursday, water and dampness stayed around until Sunday, and Monday these flowers were out. And this is just a small sampling of the flowers that have bloomed. Hedges are covered with blossoms; fields that last week were dust and scrub are now dotted or covered with flowers. A lot of the flowers will be familiar as Canadian houseplants, just ten times the size and living year round outdoors. As well, the grass is greener and everything looks a little less parched.

It has rained twice more since last week's deluge. Nothing as spectacular though — a slight rain on Tuesday, that consisted of a series of squalls around 6:00 - 7:00pm. Again, late yesterday evening we had another series of small outbursts. The pavement is dry this morning and the gutters didn't get a real workout.

But the best thing is that today it is actually cool, about 25 degrees C. Last night after the rain fall I headed out to the theatre in a long sleeve shirt. This morning I put on a short sleeve shirt, but I would be quite comfortable in long sleeves.

The theatre is becoming a weekly event. The Department of Performing Arts has an outdoor theatre and each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday either the students mount a play or a visiting production is staged.

Last week, Veena thought we were going to see a social drama by an Algerian playwright, but it turned out to be a farce, "Run for Your Wife", put on by the students. All the references were rewritten for Accra, and it was a blast, especially with the audience around me roaring with laughter, sometimes at jokes and references I didn't get.
 

Last night I attended with my grad student, Prosper. I was late and dashed across campus in my long sleeve shirt without breaking a sweat. Last week's performance started on GMT (Ghana Maybe Time) and as I trotted I hoped that tonight's would do likewise. It didn't. But I arrived just as the lights went down and was guided through the dark to my seat. Two bonuses I enjoy are that faculty get in free and we seated in the front row (not so close to make this a negative).

The play was Capek's RUR (most famous for being the origin of the word robot). It's not a great play, but it was played for laughs and ended with a great sequence with all the robots doing a synchronized dance number — doing "the robot" of course.