What is that noise encircling our home?

Screeching around our home, the cicadas that come with the onset of the rainy season sound like an army of broken hard drives droning in free space. They can reach up to 120 decibels and can be heard in the heat of the day right before a storm. Their chorus is an extraordinary buzz.

Funny true life story about this part of our Brasília life. Two years ago, two friends were visiting from Alaska and Washington, D.C. when we heard a loud sound in the house. Uli was out of the house somewhere, and the sound seemed to be coming from his office. It sounded like the death of a computer, and I immediately thought that there must be some sort of hardware melting down. Our friends and I rushed into his office to intervene and search for the origin of the noise. We looked and looked and eventually found a two-inch bug happily clinging to the screen window while emitting this broken computer sound. After having a good laugh, our friends made a recording and we started to hear cicadas everywhere.

Now, when the cicadas really get noisy, I cannot help but thinking of flying broken hard drives.

Update: The next day it rained.

 Not long after I posted. Less that 24 hours after I posted. 

It rained.

For four glorious days, the parched earth and dust gave way to sweet droplets of rain. The fragrance. The decadence. 

On Monday, I had to drop something off at work quickly. When I exited the building, there were clouds rumbling. By the time I reached our apartment, the sky was sputtering. I arrived to run raggedly through the house shouting to my husband about the rain when everything opened and it poured. 

Really there is nothing sweeter. Nothing more refreshing. More nourishing. 

Than the first rain.

When will it rain again?

We haven't had a tiny drip drop of rain in 117 days, I read this morning. With temperatures near 35 Celsius/95 Fahrenheit and relative humidity around 15% Brasília is parched. Not yet record-breaking, 2020 is currently in 8th position in historical records for the length of the dry season with predictions that it could maybe rain just a little bit on the 22nd. There is a fine dust layered everywhere on everything. It makes you feel lethargic and a bit slow. This is a normal part of the seasonal changes here, and it really isn't hotter or drier than some of the arid prairie in Wyoming or deserts of Arizona where I have spent time. However, as my skin becomes flaky and cracked and I constantly gulp down liters of water, I have to admit that a bit of rain would be nice.

A friend and proud Brasíliense Nicolas Behr published a bilingual collection of poems worth a read if you'd like to understand our home town. Here's a .pdf in an online version: It Will Never Rain Again.

Until it rains, I think I will just settle into some poetry, brew a cup of strong, Brazilian coffee, and put some music on in the background from a place where it surely must be raining.