Monsoon

It's all rain exploding onto aluminum now, the hut's roof shaking and I'm worried it will all just fall down. I ran here from the edge of the Atlantic, where clouds had towered for days and this morning suddenly stampeded onto land. Fishermen hauled lines in fast, hard. It was to be a big one.

The first monsoon of the season always comes out of nowhere. It was hot for months, the bottoms of my feet cracked and dusty. But then the clouds broke open and it felt good as I ran home, the morning light bright and clean and the air a pregnant cool. The fruit freshly cut in the markets, the coffee hot in the cafes, bread warm, the drunks still sleeping on sidewalks, women just arriving to the heart of the matter with the morning gossip. Everything waiting, and then the clouds break open and it really is all noise and cold water and I am beginning to worry it will really all just fall down because I came to this country on a whim, on the advice of a cousin, and nothing seems more flimsy than that as the rain hurls itself all around me. There are old men covering peanuts and fried pork skins and roasted corn with the lids of frying pans and plastic bags and the explosions on the aluminum rock me now as I have nowhere to go.

My students laugh too loud and walk in packs. They join gangs. They watch roosters kill each other. They climb trees fast and jump into bottomless caves filled with dark, dank water. They are eager to learn how to read. They eat mountains of rice, dance bachata every weekend, and are kind toward me in the most beautiful ways. Even the rain, tearing down dead leaves and crinkled paper and plastic bottles from the bushes and trees and pushing them down into the street gutters, is harsh and kind and nurturing and I cannot always see that.

Once it stops I get out and walk along the beach again trying to listen. The ocean is clean and fresh. The sand is all caked together, smooth and brand-new. Crab tracks and seagull prints appear every so often. Sunlight streaks through the clouds. No rainbows. I climb to the top of a hill above the beach and a young boy is also up there, alone. I greet him, say good morning, and begin to throw rocks into the sea below us. He does too, and I bet him a small coin I can throw farther. There is a big cargo ship beginning to show on the horizon. On the next throw, he acts as if he's hit the ship and sunk it, satisfying sounds coming from his lips pursed in a smile. I wonder where it's from, where it's going.