Rain rain go away

The mango showers (the name comes as the rain helps in ripening of the mangoes, also known as the pre-monsoon showers, April showers and Summer Showers) has hit Kerala with its full fury. As usual, the prediction has gone wrong and the state is in a huge chaos. The monsoon comes in June, and so people, mostly housewives, start preparing for the monsoon in the summer. They sundry almost all spices, rice and wheat to grind it and store it for the monsoon. The also dry coconut to extract oil from it and mangoes are dried to make pickles. So when the forecasters predict the rain for next week, everyone starts the last-minute preparations - buy spices, rice and wheat, pluck unripe mangoes and cut the coconuts. The very next day, the rain starts!!!
As for Aisha, its like she is seeing the rain for the first time. It seems very strange, it hasn't rained since we came here. Kerala is a place blessed with rains - at least one rain per month. But it has been almost five months since we landed here, and no rain till now. Whoever says that there is no climate change is just being economical with the truth.
Coming back to Aisha, although she was thrilled to see water dropping all around her, she was depressed at the thought of staying inside all day. The hens stayed in their coop, the squirrels took the shelter of their drey, the birds went to their nests. No cats came along. Aisha got really bored and I had to take her out to watch and feel the rain.

I was worried if she would get sick, but Alhamdulillah, I was wrong.

By the river side.

I have always loved to go to the river and I was waiting eagerly for Aisha to grow up to take her to the river. We live near to River Thootha originating from the Thootha hills, which joins the second largest river in Kerala, the Bharathappuzha or Nila, and flows to the Arabian sea. My niece and nephew who arrived a week ago from US joined us on our venture. I was a little bit worried about our (my SIL and me) ability to take care of the three - my nephew who is 5 years old, niece who is 2 1/2 and Aisha.
Aisha has not been near such a huge amount of water before (she has gone to the beach once, but never got near the water), she was scared and surprised at the same time. She wanted to touch the water, but she was terrified if something would harm her. It was only after repeated re-assurance did she touch the waters. After all, it wasn't the water that attracted her, but the pebbles and the sand. She loved to bite the pebbles and I had trouble in throwing away each pebble she grabbed. But with thousands of pebbles for her to mouth, I had to run behind her to stop her from mouthing it.

The Timid Toddler.

When the race was over, and the anxiety gone, she stepped into the water - but made sure not to leave her grip on my fingers.

Aisha watched the fish and the tadpoles swimming, the cranes and kingfishers who fed on them and the construction of a new bridge across the river.

The return trip (You can see my nephew and niece in the background).

Sorry.

...and we are back!!!
I'm soooo sorry for disappearing from the blog world for such a long time. I know I've done wrong. I was a bit busy, a bit lazy and something kept me away from writing anything. I think the writing instinct in me went down for a few months. The work-laziness directly proportional theory also played its part - the more work, the more lazy I became. The transition again from India to Dubai is making me go insane! It takes a lot of time to prepare for the journey, and then you have the post-journey getting-settled-down syndrome (??!!). It took some days for Aisha to understand that she cannot always run out, see the hens and be pampered by grandparents. Here it is only two of us.
Now that I'm back, let me first complete the updates -strike off some of the assignments in our bucket list updates.
NB: I've dated my posts according to the time of the events.