The accumulated heat in the atmosphere when it has not rained for days, makes the temperature rise above 35 degrees between noon and 3 pm, when the sun reaches its zenith to gradually dip into the South China Sea behind the mountain range. The clouds then gathers the remaining daylight within its evanescent shape, letting the shadows of the night on the jungle floor and rice fields rise, the wisp of white mist as light as feather rests on the canopy and turns from rose to dun to sepia, and, with this, a stillness settles and the breeze stops as if the world in passing from one stage in its evolution to the next is holding its breath, as night insects begin to serenade.
The soil is parched and cracked in the canals where there was mud, and dusty on the rough carabao tracks, it has turned to white clay, baked as hard as shards of a broken jar with sharp jutting edges where the soil had been turned by the spade and is now in clumps or solidified matter, as it had not been stamped into a uniform shape on the path we take going up and down to the well, or the rough road at the entrance gate leading to the house.
The dryness of the air has utterly emptied it from its content of freshness and humidity, and rain is the topic of conversation with the rice farmers in the barrio, such as it is, as it has not rained for three weeks. Our need for drinking water, washing, and use it for cement, must be carried on the shoulder in 20 L water containers up the steep slope, a hundred meters bellow, from the well. And, of course, this is a heavy load to carry any time of the day, as the foot path is not in the lee of the trees anymore, the wild jungle undergrowth having been cleared, with all kinds and shapes of invading creepers and ferns and thick bamboo, all pursuing sunlight and smothering what is underneath in this perpetual struggle for life, to rise above the jungle floor.
Of course, I do this performance happily, for the sake of my family, my house, the idea I had coming here to this island and this jungle, of being free of modern days shackles, traffic jams, non-stop news coverage and bedlam, happy that this mountain slope is giving us a profusion of fresh water and happy to thank God every morning for this blessing.
Being already up at dawn or after midnight when I had slept enough already, the rain spatters on the tin roof as a fresh breeze sweeps through the trees like a sudden shudder, broad and vast in its sweep and ample as if filling up empty space, its movement distinctly plying the vegetation around the house as it is heard racing and turning like the cusp of a wave.
Borne across the valley from the mountain range on the horizon, drafts of sustained gusts blow to prove the strength of nature manifesting itself in its pure strength.
Then it is the calm again, as if after a storm, then again it starts, moments of tug of war, the atmosphere pulling and giving way with a fresh sprinkle of fat drizzle hitting the metal sheets, then suddenly, the night sky becomes white in the middle of the night, as if mist has covered it, rain coming in thick splashes once again as racing hoofs galloping under low indigo clouds, and in seconds, the full downpour reaches the house, then, quickly, I have to go out with the flash light and adjust the barrel under the gutter to harvest the first rain water from the roof.
