Rain Ghosts

My friend Erika is worried about the rivers the rain has brought but she’s more concerned about the ghosts. She says Namibia’s rain-soaked roads are full of them. Wandering spirits suddenly severed from their bodies looking for resolution, some sort of return or for a smoke.

The rainy evening that has us stranded at a wedding venue an hour and a half outside of Windhoek reminds Erika of a night just like it. She was pulled over with a relative as they waited for a storm to calm on their way to Rehoboth when two men approached their car and asked for a cigarette.

Not one to take chances with strangers in the pitch-black middle of nowhere, her companion shooed them away and they disappeared into the deluge. I ask Erika how she knew they were ghosts and she looks at me as if I’ve asked if water is wet.

“My hare,” she says in Afrikaans, hovering her hand above her arm to signify her hair standing on end. I’m not sure I believe in ghosts but it’s no night to find out if they exist.

Water pours from the sky with the sound of an explosion.

The lightning is so bright, it illuminates the world for just a moment before fading back to black. And the rain seems set on a drowning.

As we contemplate whether to risk our lives on kilometres of dirt road, chance four flooded rivers and ultimately dance with the Grim Reaper, a boom of thunder sends sense shuddering down our spines.

That, and the fact that our friend and designated driver Kora got a flat tyre on the road the rainy night before is enough to have us checking into the wedding venue minus toiletries, pyjamas or shame.

Our group passes a fitful night in the only beds available, deep in the basement of the lodge.

Nobody talks about ghosts, but Erika and I report hearing strange noises throughout the night.

I swear I heard somebody writing, their pen scratching noisily on paper. Erika recalls the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor and Kora doesn’t hear anything other than our colleague’s snoring, an annoying but small mercy.

When morning arrives, it comes with an eagerness to get away.

The sky has cleared and a field of flowers near the lodge’s stone chapel are blooming brilliantly despite being battered the night before.

They have weathered the storm and so have we.

After breakfast, despite clear blue sky, the lodge owner urges us to make haste.

The rivers will be flooded from yesterday’s rain.

The rain will come again and it’s best we leave and join a convoy with the other wedding guests in case anything happens on the road.

The lodge owner knows their land best and what they say comes to pass.

The rain has made rivers of once dry riverbeds and we end up helping a family get across the second of four. It’s the river we’ve been dreading after needing assistance through it on the way there. But this time, our little truck ploughs through like a champion.

As we chatter away and look forward to the creature comforts of home, the kilometres pass by quickly and the mood is merry – until Kora points to where she got a flat tyre two days before.

She recognises the spot because, in the dark, all she could see was a tall tree. By day, we can all see what’s behind it.
Graves.

Rows and rows of gravestones bent by wind and time and seemingly staring.

Kora and I gasp at the grim discovery but Erika is completely unsurprised.

“A cemetery,” she says with a knowing smile.

“Ghosts like to do funny things when it rains.”

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com Blessed be her tenure.