On the drive from Nairobi to Eldoret, we witness grove after grove of stumps, trees cut down for firewood to keep hearths warm. We pass rivers that have less than a foot of water in them. We stop in the middle of the road to wait for a tornado of red dust to pass by, closing our half-open windows.

It’s uncharacteristically hot for the highlands.

When we arrive in Eldoret, I notice yellowing leaves of the trees. It’s the first time in my thirty years of visiting that I’ve seen leaves turning shades of orange and red—a little too reminiscent of Canadian autumns.

Sitting in the sunken living room of a family friend’s house, he tells us there will be no rain in our region until the end of March. In some parts of Kenya, rain is not expected until October.

It’s January.

Along the roads, there have been sightings of cow carcasses.

The next morning, I wake up with a sore throat.  All day, my eyes burn and throat feels dry, no matter how much water I drink. The privilege to drink water at any time in these times. Then I see it—a smoky film casting over the garden. The air is thick with it. There’s a thin film of dust on the glass tabletop in the patio.

We’re in the midst of the worst drought in forty years.

When I return to Ontario, the wildfire season has begun. Even though we’re thousands of miles from Quebec, smoke hovers above the trees. The lingering scent of campfire is nostalgic, except for that this smoke is made of pollutants. We are encouraged to wear masks outdoors, as toxic particles can reach down into the lungs and enter the bloodstream.

It’s turning out to be Canada’s worst wildfire season on record.

Fire and dust. Both need rain.

My friend and fellow poet Siboe texts me from Nairobi, “Mark you, we have no other home in this vast void that is the universe. Only the planet. This gentle being part water, part stone. This home of a sky, a moon, a sun. Dunia.”

When I return to Kenya the following year, there is still a drought, but the effects are not as extreme in our region. I’m here until April, and the rainy season has just begun.

A few days ago we had a proper rainstorm and I’ve already noticed the changes. The bougainvillea over the bridge, which hadn’t been blooming, has suddenly burst into crepe pink bracts. The drape of cape honeysuckle hanging over the garage was sparse a few days ago, and now there are over a dozen flowers dripping over the roof.

Rain upends everything in the garden. Large leaves from the Illawarra Flame crowd the ground. They resemble the tulip tree leaves that sometimes fall to the ground at the height of summer in Ontario. The scatterings of flowers and leaves make patterns on the patio tiles. Jacaranda flowers sit upright between blades of grass. Drenched rain lilies sprout overnight. The post-rain glow illuminates a row of recently planted geraniums in the dusk-washed window box. The scent of the earth after rain has a name—petrichor—to me, it smells like the color green. The scent of soil when you’re a child, when you spend more time playing close to the ground.

Near the old verandah, the bush with creamy flowers has dozens of blooms. I learn that it’s an orange cestrum, also known as “orange peel.”  It’s more of a buttery yellow.  There’s no scent in the daytime, but it releases a sweet scent after the sun sets. One evening after jamatkhana (mosque), I walk out to the bush, careful not to be accosted by our guard dogs with undoubtedly wet paws. But when I get to it, I notice that the gardener has already trimmed the branches back, and the flowers have been cut. I hear the rumbles of thunder overhead, and quickly tuck my disappointment away for the evening.

Every night around 2 a.m., the guard dogs commence their howling ritual. One dog begins with a deep guttural howl, followed by a chorus of dog wails. The chorus descends into barks, yelps, and occasional growls, and then a reluctant silence.

In the early hours of the morning, the chatter of the birds is met with the backfiring exhaust from traffic, and if it’s a Sunday, the megaphone preacher begins his praise with dry heaving “amen”s.

When the rain comes in the late afternoon, it drowns out most manmade sounds. Our house dog, Bella, patters into my room, grunting and panting. She’s afraid of thunder, and yet ventures out into the storm-riddled garden on occasion. She suffers from fits of terror followed by brief moments of bravery. When she’s scared, she puts her paw on my bed, or scratches her claws a little too close to my groin. 

Rain is strange like that. Too little rain, and the land and her people become parched. Too much rain and it frightens dogs and floods expressways. Just last week, two children drowned in a rain gutter after being swept up by the torrential downpour.

I return to Canada a few weeks later, just before the floods. Back in Kenya, the rains have washed away homes, people, animals, livelihoods. Sludge and muck, bits of furniture and torn clothing are carried downstream by heavy currents. My poet friend Siboe writes to me after a recent trip to the Rift Valley, “I weep for the street families and the unhoused. How do they cope?” Neither of us have the answer. 

In my uncle’s garden in Nairobi, the ancient Mugumo fig tree, sacred to the Kikuyu, has fallen in the dead of night, its roots waterlogged. My uncle shares that even in death, the tree was thoughtful not to fall on the house, but over the fence. Maybe the weight of prayers finally felled the tree, like a tasbih breaking after too much use.

Back In Ontario, we brace for another wildfire season. My throat tightens with the thought of acrid smoke hanging over the forest. I return to the trail near my house, and locate my kin tree, the box elder, just off the trail.  The leaves are just beginning to bud, and there’s an unmistakable April chill in the air. I’m careful to approach it, as sometimes there are black squirrels hiding in the branches and they easily scare. I walk up to my friend, say hello first, and place my hand on its burled bark. Smiling at its familiar bumps and ridges, I spread my arms across its sprawling branches. Placing my chest against the trunk, I hear the rapid flutter of my heart. I close my eyes and imagine roots reaching deep into the earth, taking hold for decades to come.

It rains for the next three days.