It’s raining gulley whoppers and the old man is dumping tons of potatoes on his bridge. This booming thunder sounds just that way, like there’s someone up in the sky dropping loads of potatoes, or maybe bricks, just like my mother used to tell it. I don’t know when I’ve seen it rain so much, certainly not since we’ve been here. It started shortly after noon and has been unrelenting these past 2 hours. But I can’t complain, as it’s finally cool, and we have a fabulous deep porch to hide out on that overlooks Sri Ratih’s courtyard of frangipani and other tropical flowering trees.

I’ve been trying mightily to physically and mentally overcome the heat these past several days. Mostly to little avail. We’ve determined that any activity, even slight, is best accomplished in segments. Planning a walk into town, perhaps a half-mile, is done ever-so-slowly with a couple sit-down rests along the way.

Beyond dehydration and heat exhaustion, walking poses perhaps a more immediate hazard, that of getting hit by a motor scooter or jeep as they go hurtling past at a frightening pace. It doesn’t help that they’re going opposite to my usual sense of traffic orientation so that I’ve learned to look behind me if I step off of the sidewalk.

So, the rain today is welcome on several fronts, to cool us, to give us rest, but also as an added incentive to just sit quietly, without heed of what place we should be going. Simply to be in the moment, watching the birds and enjoying the beauty around us.