One week after I write something new here on my website, my task management software reminds me that it’s time to write something else. One week is an arbitrary but important deadline I set for myself. It keeps me disciplined, writing daily or near daily; it also keeps my demanding audience satisfied (hi mom! hi dad!).

Last Thursday my reminder (“post to website at least once a week!”) popped up and was ignored. Last Friday my overdue task turned an accusing shade of red. I tried to think of something to write about: My new job? Learning Bambara? none of that grabbed me. Perhaps Marriage: The First 120 Days? Or Mali: The First 180 Days? I grew desperate for an idea, and grumpier and grumpier each day that smug little reminder nagged me. I began to despair that I’d never think of anything worth writing about, ever again.

I pled extenuating circumstances to my infuriating, unsympathetic task management software: The heat, your honor! It’s maddening, stifling. Cars stall, food spoils, videotapes melt. Metal surfaces burn fingers at the touch. Grown men throw tantrums at café tables; women burst into frustrated sobs over nothing, a stained blouse or rotten vegetables. Normally unruly children lie listlessly in the shade.

I sit in my car, stuck in traffic, sweat soaking my hair, slickening my neck and running down my belly; my left arm roasts and reddens in the sun. My only comfort is that it could be worse; it’s 114 in Gao.

Then, hallelujah, it rained! I was at work until the early evening. Through the glass doors at the front of the store, I saw the sky turn dark a little too soon, and the air in the courtyard turn red. I’d seen that before, maybe even remarked that it looked like rain, only to be disappointed. I didn’t pay it much mind.

On the way home I saw lightning over the distant cliffs. A few scattered drops smacked my windshield. Still, none of that was new -- there was a powerful, dry storm of wind and lightning a few weeks ago, and a couple times since then the teasing “mango rains” dampened the driveway.

Still later, we sat outside at the 3eme Millenaire restaurant. At the next table a woman smoked a hookah of fragrant tobacco -- the scent of dried apples was strong -- while her baby played on the table. The rain started again and this time the steadily increasing noise told us it was serious. We discovered leaks in the mudcloth awning and moved our table. It relented, then returned, then relented, then returned harder than ever. The noise didn’t drown us out, though. It animated our conversation -- what a thrill to have different weather! We’d lost track of how many days we’d gone without even seeing a cloud.

One moment everything went dark and still. The Lebanese restaurant owner chatting up customers went quiet, and even the men on the side of the road selling coras and cheap Tuareg woodwork stopped moving. A bolt of lightning cracked down across the street. A few seconds later we smelled it: electrical, chemical, a little metallic.

“That reminds me,” someone remarked, “of the time our barn was struck by lightning. All the pigs that were touching metal -- sticking their snouts through the fence, or whatever -- got fried.” Conversation resumed and the storm moved south. We marveled at the cool breeze; we breathed deeply the clear air.

Driving home, I tried to avoid the frogs splashing through the puddles. For the first time in weeks I wasn’t tired, I was jazzed up, ready to write. In five months I’ll probably be begging for it to stop, but for now, let it rain!