Africans and our lovely climate/weather

WHEN IT RAINS AFRICA CRIES, WHEN IT SHINES AFRICA CRIES (Except in Malawi)

Yesterday at 23:44

A few months ago, every day there was a "mercy train" or "mercy convoy" leaving Nairobi carrying food and other relief to some of the nearly 10m Kenyans threatened with starvation -- because it hadn't rained. The dams ran dry and, as happens in most of Africa, electricity outages followed. Now the rains are back. And it is misery again; floods, broken bridges, and although the dams are full, the storms are dropping huge trees on power lines and we continue to endure darkness. Last night, most of Kenya was without power for several hours.
This failure to harness nature is frustrating.

In the early 90s, most of Africa suffered severe food shortages. I remember then listening to a BBC broadcast, in which a ranking UN official was saying the worst was over, and food production in most of Africa will increase toward the end of the year. I thought he was going to announce the discovery of some new crop variety or irrigation method, or miracle fertiliser. No, he said they had been looking at the skies, and the signs were that is was going to rain soon!

Our difficulties with using science to take control of our lives, ends up in situations where we have unbearable dust in sunny seasons. Then when it rains, we are paralysed. You can't wait for a bus or taxi without getting soaked, because most stands are not covered. In fact, taxi stop points are arbitrary. Even if you have a car, it is useless. Traffic snarls become six hours long. And if your car can't swim through the floods, you are going nowhere. My office assistant called me at 7.45am to say she was stuck in traffic. It is two hours later, and the poor woman has not yet made it to office.

And, yes, because of the heavy rains, we can expect that there will be food shortages. So is it all hopeless? No. Take a country like Malawi. It has one of the smallest economies in Africa, and was once among its poorest nations. But in less than 10 years, it has moved from a food deficit case to a food surplus status and one of the leading African food exporters. This year Kenya, the country with the most mechanised agriculture in East Africa, is importing maize from Malawi.