Afiniam Senegal

A lone car is driving across the causeway through the mangrove swamp, as the sun falls behind the fromager and mango trees. The clear sky turns blue black, except one isolated mass of boiling white and grey cloud. Lightning arcs through the cloud in jagged blue, white and orange. Minute by minute the storm builds, as the car, with its dusty tail heads towards it. The car and the road shrink, as the storm grows. Thunder explodes, though the air is still and silent, hot and humid. The constant strobe of lightning fills half the sky now. Each flash briefly illuminates the mud flats and the dark shadow of the forested island the car is headed to. The light reflects bright from the lagoons and makes a silver ribbon of the river channel.

A fat drop of rain hits the windscreen of the car, causing a crater in the dust. Then ten more, then a hundred, until the red dust runs in rivers down the glass. The tiny car meets the oncoming storm. A blast of wind strikes the car, which rocks from the force. The rain now comes in sheets, driven horizontally, and forms large puddles and floods. Each flash of lightning shows the rapid transformation from dusty land to water and mud.

The car reaches the forest, and higher ground as the wind shifts up a gear. It howls through the trees, and the palms double over in deep bows, showing obeisance to the mighty storm god. The tiny car with its tiny wipers, flapping futilely, makes its way through the giant trees as it is buffeted by each blast. Broken branches fly through the air, and the hammering rain now forms rivers of the roads and trails. It swims its way through the red torrent and finally, it arrives at the village and stops. The thunder continues to roar and every few seconds the lightning illuminates the lone vehicle, plastered with dirt, leaf and stick, as a river of mud runs past.

The following day the sun shines. The pools of water shrink and the mud dries. The villagers are about, inspecting the damage. Houses have lost their roofs, banana trees lay tattered and uprooted. The rice field is half buried under a layer of mud. The roads are impassable, gouged by the escaping water, and blocked by fallen trees. The debris of destruction lies everywhere. Broken branches, corrugated roofing, a washing bowl, a child’s toy and various clothes, are being cleared or collected.

The wall of one house had collapsed, killing all three people huddled in it. A village elder, caught out in the storm took shelter under a mango tree, which fell and crushed him.

The car is undamaged, but caked with mud. The huge flock of fruit bats take flight in the evening, swirling in their millions out over the marsh and the river, then back to feast on the bounty of fallen mangoes. The goats stand by watching, unperturbed by any of it.