#AtoZChallenge Letter V

Diary of a rainy day. 

6:30 am. It has clearly rained last night: the ground is a little wet. But it's not raining now. Just a bit cloudy. By 7:30 I'm on my way to the market, taking advantage of the break in rain. It's my favorite kind of day. The grey of the sky makes all the colors pop. That plus the sheen of recent rain lingering on surfaces, and it's a feast for the eyes. 

I pause in the middle of the bridge over the river, breathing deep, photographing my favorite vista. It's not really a river. More like a small tributary of the river, a tiny branch within a larger river delta. I never learned its name. A sign in Vietnamese suggests to me that this might be the "Song Do", but maybe that's the name of the bridge. 

The air smells sweet. Green. Fresh. 

One more picture, including the verdigris cupola of the one Catholic church in town, not close, but visible further down the winding river. The river itself is a murky greenish-brown, churned up by the recent rain. Water palms and coconut palms line both sides of the river, verdant in all their green glory, vibrant amid the grey above. My favorite kind of day. 

Continuing walking to the open air market, I begin to feel the air heavy on my skin. I've never understood the concept "but it's a dry heat." Heat is heat. Dry is dry. The tropics are luscious with humidity and I love it. In the American Midwest, my skin was always dry and required repeated moisturizing, especially during the winter months. Not here. Definitely not on a day like today, when the air itself is saturated with potential rain, veritably vibrating with anticipation for the clouds above to release their droplets so the vapor in the air can join the party and fall to the earth. My favorite kind of day. 

8:00 am, and I'm on my way home from the market, laden with a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables and meat for the next couple days. Buying everything fresh means never keeping any food for more than two days, maybe three. I have one mango, one dragon fruit, two passionfruit, a large carrot, 1/4kilo of green beans, an eggplant, two onions, a bulb of garlic, two chicken breasts, and a fishcake cylinder. 

Fishcake sounds gross, but it has become one of our very favorites - cut up and fried into scrambled eggs, or just fried like a burger and cut into pieces to eat on slices of cucumber. It's one of the fresh foods that can last several days in the fridge. 

The view from my desk.

9 am. A light drizzle. Fine by me. I'm happily ensconced at my computer, with all the windows and doors in the house open to let in the fresh air. Outside my office window the Birds-of-Paradise branches act as an umbrella preventing rain from spattering inside. The "plick-plick-plick" of water droplets landing on the broad leaves foreshadows heavier rain to come. 

9:30 a.m. As expected, a heavy downpour. I sit by the front door, recording the sound and sight of tropical rain to share with friends and family on facebook. This downpour won't last. It'll change between drizzle, nothing, and downpour all day. My favorite kind of day. 



Thank you for visiting my #AtoZChallenge! My theme is "Audience Participation" (read about it, here) and now it is your turn. Each day will be a new story based on suggestions from your comments. Suggest anything: a word, scenario, character, location... I will be keeping a list of suggestions, so if yours isn't used tomorrow, it may show up later. (Even after AtoZ.)

Today's post was inspired by the prompt "verdant", suggested by Jz (of A Reluctant Bitch), given in comments on my "U" post (here) I must admit, I broke my own rule, and this is more truth than fiction. Hope you enjoyed it anyway!