Happy Rainy Season

The rainy season made its debut this year with quite a bang, literally. I was playing soccer up near Bogor about 40 km or 20 some odd miles south of Jakarta when it started to sprinkle. I did not think much of it other than how my new soccer boots were going to fair in the wet grass. The shoes were purchased with dry season pitches in mind - packed hard dirt/grass - thus no studs. They are also a very unsightly blue color which I am still struggling with. They were bought "sight unseen" from a teammate - cheap and very blue.

Anyway I had a lot of time to do little practice moves and view my shoes from various angles where the blue color was not quite so disturbing, due to the fact that I was playing goalie. Our Indo players are on strike - or so it seems - not such a big deal except that both our goalies are Indos. Being one of the few players raised in a country where kids grow up throwing and catching I figured I had best get myself in goal before one of the hung over Germans volunteered as an opportunity to avoid running about. My shoes did fine and I performed well enough - we posted a 2 - 2 tie against a typically genki Japanese side.

I did not give the rain much thought until I was driving home and the show began. Huge amounts of water accompanied by tremendous thunder cracks (it is definitely a crack rather than a boom) and fractal style lightning flashes marked the beginning of this years rains. The rains followed me home to the city and soon the streets of Jakarta were flowing. I enjoy the rainy season. At least there exists each day the potential of a change in the weather. During the dry season it is hot with a chance of being hotter or perhaps a degree or two cooler. Thats about the extent of change. But now there is a very good chance that every afternoon around 3, the sky will darken, the wind will pick up and more often than not it will dump rain for a bit. This might occurr again later on in the evening which can be nice - drifting off while the rains make all sorts of sleep inducing sounds .... So now it will rain pretty much everyday until around May. And the city will seem a little cleaner and the air slightly fresher and the greenery a shade greener and the mosquitos a lot deader and the canals a bit more full, and more full, and more full until they crest their banks at which time the rainy season is no longer quite so pleasant ... but for the time being I welcome the change in seasons and enjoy the rain it brings.