An Englishman's Obsession

With a day off last week for Deepavali, and another on Monday for Hari Raya, I thought I might be able to get out and explore another corner of Singers on at least one of these days off.

However, sometimes it really rains here, especially, as you may be able to imagine, during rainy season, which started earlier this month. Of course, rainy season really seemed to swing into gear just when I was about to go out and explore another corner of Singers on one of my two days off.

I got the following information from one of the many information packs I received when I arrived here:

“Rainfall is abundant (annual rainfall 2,333 mm). It's wise to carry an umbrella to avoid getting drenched. As anyone who has left an umbrella in the office or home knows, the second you do that, the rain is going to pour down in sheets.”

I didn’t read this information until recently:


Exhibit A

This was from a very brief walk. If you can imagine walking for two minutes with someone pouring a never ending bucket of water over you, this is pretty much what the stroll to the bus stop is like when it rains.

Another fact: there are 171 “thunder days” on average every year. “Thunder” is an understatement. The skies are more than angry. The thunder makes the kids at school scream, even the ones who have lived here all their lives. I was sitting here today through a storm, with regular bursts of thunder, so I was kind of used to it. But when a crack of thunder was particularly close, I still jumped out of my skin.

I’ve been trying, for some time, to think of an appropriate simile with which to describe the thunder, but I can’t do it justice.

But you know that kid who could do the loudest belches when you were at school? You know, the ones that seemed to be physically impossible? That seemed to come from the very pit of their stomach and went on for far longer than you expected? Do you remember that combination of being at once extremely impressed, a little disgusted and somewhat unnerved?

Imagine that kid belching right in your ear. Imagine that raw, awesome, impressive power.

Fortunately, with the thunder, the smell of orange squash which often accompanied the belch is absent.

Regular readers will not be surprised to discover that, when I hear thunder like this, I am afraid, and curl up in a ball, whimpering.

And this was before a few people told me their lightning strike stories. Someone told me that Singers has the highest number of lightning strikes in the world, an assertion I’ve not had the courage to corroborate in case it’s true. One of my colleagues, indeed the colleague who sits next to me in our little office, saved someone’s life by doing CPR after they had been struck by lightning. The colleague who sits next to him told me that the person who used to have my job was waiting at the bus stop – the bus stop I (used to) use – when a flash of lightning struck the pavement just half a metre away.

This is even more frightening than the thunder.

I think I’ll be spending most of the rainy season heading for cover, clad entirely in rubber.