Monsoon Season

Every day, with rare exception, there is a torrential rain storm that surges over the city.  It is the equivalent of titanic buckets of water being poured over your homes, with the volume of a clattering freight train making its way through your front yard.  It silences everything with its boisterousness, from teachers lecturing at school in mid-afternoon, to life at the market, to traffic in the hustle-bustle of Phnom Penh.  Those caught on the streets are at a loss; motorcycles stall on the side of the road, while unlucky motorists find themselves in too-deep puddles they should not have risked, and unprepared commuters sum up the cost of damaged goods.  The city waits, cooling down, as water plummets from the sky.    

At home, life is summoned at the roar of the storm.  Children shriek with joy, and streets are occupied with dancing, running, screaming, with laughing.  It is time for tag. It is time for swimming.  It is time for a free shower.  Out comes the bath bucket with the shampoo, as both young’uns and old’uns take advantage of the storm.  In front of my home, Channa, my lively sister mimics Psy’s Gungnum style as she chases the children in the street.  Every existing child I know on our street is drenched now, playing, each face exuberant with joy.      

“HanNA!” they call, laughing, running, screaming.  But I can’t, rationalizing, wrestling, fretting.  In my mind, I can’t get over the knowledge of what comes with the play…injuries, disease, sickness… I think that I know too much to ever be able to share those carefree laughs of the storm, with these kids, on this side of heaven. 

Meanwhile, homes are flooding.  My home is flooding.  Water flows through the holes between our wooden planks, into the lower lot next to us—a trash dump for the community, a beer-drinking space for men, a place to dry clothes for women, a sand lot for children, and a scrounging space for animals.  For others, water that continually surges into homes is trapped, forcing families to wade through water, or sewage, for days at a time.