Whoa the Rain-o

Liberia's rainy season generally starts in mid-April and runs through October. Liberians tell me that with the advent of climate change, the rain now starts a bit later. Well last night we got a spectacular preview. We were leaving work and noticed the sky getting a bit gray. By the time we had reached the supermarket ten minutes later, the clouds were menacing (still no soy milk at the supermarket, looking like sometime next week) and drops were beginning to fall. After we had checked out...forget it. It was absolutely pouring, the type of rain that soaks you through and through in an instant.

I thought I was home free after I made it from the jeep to our apartment door. The rain was squishing in my shoes, but I was home! Not so fast. Bill honked the horn and it turned out that I had left something in the jeep. My glasses had fogged up (this happens often in the transition from air conditioned vehicle to intensely humid air, it's a great look), so I couldn't actually see what Bill was holding up against the window, but Guthrie tried to read the bag..."something and Lady's?" I realize it was the package my colleague Gaurav had just brought back from the U.S. for me. I screamed (so he could hear me over the driving rain) "Ack, Lord's and Lady's -- that's my Devachan curly hair gel!" So I ran back to the jeep to grab my hair product and yoga pants (thanks, mom!) and some essentials from Sephora (thanks, Tobin!). My hair is probably a lost cause in this crazy weather, but I like to believe I can try. Rainy season, here I come...

And I know I've written before about some of the quirks of Liberian English. A new one I've come to notice is the tacking on of the letter "o" to the end of words. Sometimes it flows naturally, as in, "I bought it the other day-o," and other times it's used almost as an independent word, as in, "that's what he told me-o." Once I started to pick this up, I tried using it in my office. My Liberian colleagues think it is hysterical. "What's going on-o?'," I'll ask. "I don't know-o," I'll sing. I'm particularly fond of saying, "Bye-o" when I leave for the day. That's a crowd-pleaser. I was told today that I may actually be more Liberian than American when I return home. Not bad-o.