what i’ve learned in peace corps cambodia [pt. 11]

How to take the afternoon off.

The rainy season, one of Cambodia’s two seasons, started about a week ago. After just a few scattered rainstorms since last November, and after marking the end of a two month hot season, this country gladly welcomes the rain that turns the streets (as well as the produce section of the local market) into a flooded mess every afternoon. The rain usually begins so suddenly and forcefully that, if caught in it, you have no choice but to be overtaken by it. And it feels just like it should, being hit by a cold bucket of water on a sweltering hot day. There’s not much of a drainage system in Cambodian streets, so the standing water in the streets just becomes another aspect of life here until the next rains come. Fresh rain cleanses things, but when water has nowhere to go, it does nothing but get dirtier. But those hours while it’s raining are just wonderful.

The kids run out into the streets, screaming, stomping in puddles, getting dirty and having fun just like kids are supposed to do. Teenagers push their bikes or their family’s moto in front of their house and scrub off yesterday’s dirt. Housewives throw their dirtiest clothes out on the railing, hoping to get a head start on the day’s laundry. Factory workers near my home strip down to their shorts and sit under drainage pipes, catching as much of nature’s rainshower as they can. Old men stand at their front doors, reach out their hands, and give their faces a refreshing rinse. At restaurants and coffee shops, people sit silently, watching rain puddles form and connect with each other as the rain continues. It’s too loud for conversation, especially near tin-roofed homes. The rain pelts them relentlessly, you’d think it was a hailstorm if you didn’t look out the window.

And even if it looks like rain, if the sky is dark and ominous, the students stay home. During rainy season, if it looks like rain, it most likely will be, and a lot of it, so it’s better not to chance it. So that leaves me at home, free to relax the afternoon away in my windowside hammock, taking it all in. I’ll miss that.