Rainy Season Blues

The rainy season takes its toll on me. In the rainy season all is harder than usual. The internet connection, sporadic at the best of times, becomes virtually nonexistent. Everything made by human hands grinds to a halt, falls apart and disintegrates. The termites on the other hand are alive and chomping their way energetically through whatever lies in their way: textiles, pictures, furniture and even the very mud of the buildings.  Suddenly they make their unwelcome 

appearance  on the walls in little mounds made by whatever their digestive systems have just regurgitated. Everything is muddy. Well, of course everything is always potentially muddy in a mud hotel situated  in a mud city, but this is when this potential is abundantly realized. Everything drips. Everything slips and slides. There are leaks in the newly painted rooms even before any of our scarce guests have even had even had time to sleep in them. The rainy season in combination with Ramadan is even worse and most of the staff are asleep somewhere and I have to go looking for them in order to get anything done and to continue working in my studio. Here is Papa the chef ( helping out in the studio for the last couple of years now, since there is not much to do in the kitchen) with Dembele stretching  out some fabric in the sun which does come out and shines very brightly in between the downpours.