Soggy

You know, for something they celebrated as being a big deal, with so much joy and song and dancing, this rainy season really sucks.

It started about a day and a half after the celebration. It seems like out of nowhere, these dense, heavy clouds came rolling up the plains, sending big, fat drops started to spatter around us. Everyone immediately grabbed whatever it was they’d been working on and dashed for the shelter of the caves. As Nandi and I ducked into our cave, I noticed several Azu scooping up coals from the fire pit, covering them in ash, and dashing for the “public” caverns that the Kan and the Aket-oizo used.

At first the rain was actually rather pleasant. It has a different smell on Minerva than it does at home. It’s hard to describe; less musty, and sharper, somehow. Perhaps it’s caused by the chlorine. Regardless, the fresh smell is energizing. I hadn’t realized how much dust was in the air, and the perpetual acrid scent of oai droppings on the cliff face was sluiced clean. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a kind of semi-holiday, with everyone mostly staying in their caverns, resting and chatting away the hours.

Even that night was pleasant. I’ve always enjoyed listening to rain as I fall asleep. It’s a comforting feeling to know you’re warm and dry while it’s wet and miserable outside, and the sound drowns out noises that would otherwise wake you; like Nandi’s snoring.

But by the next morning, instead of everything being refreshed and clean, with the sun shining again, it was still raining. In fact, the rain had gotten heavier. Little waterfalls were cascading over our cave entrance and down the cliff face below. I eyed the sodden scenery with dismay.

The entire day was rainy. I’m beginning to realize how unpleasant our ancestors must have had it. I knew academically that life for the Azu-nah wouldn’t stop if it rained. But knowing and experiencing are different. Memory never quite makes being cold and wet seem as bad as when you’re in the thick of it.

My clothes are water resistant, but they’re no match for this kind of drenching. By mid morning I was sopping. My shorts stuck to my thighs in clammy folds, my shoes squelched unpleasantly with each step, and my shirt sleeves actually started to feel noticeably heavy from absorbing so much moisture. My hair kept straggling into my face and mouth, and my fingers had gone all prune-like. But I didn’t dare change out into my other set of clothes and risk getting them soaked too. So I squelched through the afternoon, gathering fruit in the muck.

Fortunately for me, the Azu-nah seem to be just as sensitive, if not more so, to the wet and cold as I am. The foraging ended much earlier than it usually did, and we all gathered around the communal fires in the public caves as soon as we could. I went to be early. I stripped to the skin, wrung a veritable river out of my clothes, hung them to dry (pfft. Yeah right) and burrowed into my sleeping bag. I slept like a dead thing until morning.

Yesterday was just more of the same. I would probably be down with a head cold by now if the rain was genuinely cold. It’s not what you’d call comfortable by any means, but it isn’t that kind of heat-leaching cold that makes you feel like you’ll never be warm again. No, instead you just have to deal with constantly having every stitch of clothing on your body be soaking wet.

This morning is the “chores” day in the Azu-nah’s typical three day cycle, and most everyone is attending to things while staying dry in their caves. Kohric has promised a lesson tomorrow, so hopefully I can at least have a few dry hours over the next few days.

I hope this isn’t how Cold Rains is in its entirety. It’d be a shame to make it all this way just to drown on my way to breakfast.

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Just so everyone knows ahead of time, next week's entry will be a little bit delayed due to some schedule conflicts. It will not be up Tuesday. It will either be up Thursday or Friday. I'm not sure which yet, but I promise it will be up.

Spirit of Rain

The season is definitely changing. I didn’t notice it at first; it’s been subtle. But I’m noticing it slowly. The days are growing cooler, and they are getting just a tiny bit shorter each sunset.

Some places on Earth can have subtle season changes like that too, I know. But the part of the planet I grew up on had fussy, temperamental ones. Some random morning it would be colder than you expected, and you’d think “I’ll have to get my jacket out soon.” But then the next day it’d be scorching, Indian summer hot, and you’d kill for a cold glass of water. There was no measured, gradual decrease in temperature like you got elsewhere. I guess that explains why autumn has kind of crept up on me.

Well, “autumn” is a misnomer in this case. The Minervan plains don’t get a distinct spring/summer/fall/winter set of seasons. “Summer” is two distinct seasons, one warm and wet, with gentle, periodic rains and it moves into a long, dry, hot period of dry (I landed on Minerva at the beginning of Dry). Then they have a month long “season” of rain and storms, followed immediately by a short month or so of explosive growth. By then it’s gotten quite cold and most of the “winter” is cold and dry. The last few months of winter are wet, with freezing rains and snow. “Spring” is marked when the precipitation stops having ice crystals in it; it rains pretty steadily for a good month. Spring 2.0 is a second, longer period of insane growth that grades into the wet part of summer.

Kohric tells me we’ve reached the end of Dry and are coming up on Cold Rains (I didn’t ask what the winter muck is called. “Cold Rains” sounds unpleasant enough when you live mostly outside. I imagine the wet bit of winter is called something, like Oh God Even My Nose Hairs Have Frostbite.)

Today actually marks the official end of Dry. We haven’t had a drop of rain, but one of the clan lookouts spotted thick, heavy rain clouds rolling across the plains several kilometers away. The Azu-nah calendar is apparently marked by specific weather events rather than astronomically charted days. The first time someone sees rain at the end of the Dry it’s immediately the next season. You can actually smell the water on the breeze. It’s a distinct, sharp, green kind of smell compared to the gentle scent of sea water. It’s a changing, electric kind of smell. It’s exciting.

The clan celebrated the change, of course. I figured it would be more of what I’d seen in the past. Thus far their celebrations have been mostly a flamboyant version of campfire songs. They get a bit loud and people dance a lot, but there’s never been much in the way of ritual or adornments.

Tonight was different. There was still the usual drumming. But this time there was a bit more to it. Three Azu-nah, with simple, drab, yellow-brown cloths wrapping their bodies prowled around the bonfire, making long, low, bobbing dance motions. Oshtik explained they represented the spirits of the Dry season. I’d never seen anything like this from the Azu-nah before. It was fascinating.

The Dry spirits tossed powder on the fire as they danced, so that it blazed yellow and bright orange; the drums were slow and heavy-sounding. Then another Azu leapt in front of the fire and waved his arms, chanting something that was too fast for me to understand. The drummers started a faster, deeper beat; the kind that you can’t help tapping your foot or bobbing your head to. The newcomer began chasing the Dry spirits around the fire in an exaggerated half-dance. Oshtik says he is the spirit of rains.



It actually took me a minute to recognize the new Azu-nah as the Kan; he had a kind of cape of vibrant, flame-colored cloth, and had a thick wooden mask over his face. He was covered in feathers and bangles and braids, and little bits of metal that tinkled and flashed as he moved. The Dry spirits fled the scene, and the Kan threw more powder on the fire; it flashed blue, green, and orange. He continued to dance and run around the fire. The rest of the clan leapt to their feet to join him, and they danced in a greater circle around the fire, singing.

T’dree neyde Yalalea Te’ansu neyde Kanga-yesi kota Yue ban, vesh danok, wehey dree, m’boto nulei Ooooooooohhh Oooooooooh T’dree neyde Yalalea Te’ansu neyde Kanga-yesi kota Nessss’ti mocan, di kayo, a’kota ba’oh teynet Ooooooooohhh Oooooooooh T’dree neyde Te’ansu neyde T’dree neyde Yalalea

Time of rain Welcome Time of water We greet you Air moves, clouds dance, rain falls, cold gathers Ooooooooohhh Oooooooooh Time of rain Welcome Time of water We greet you Herds walk, fruit comes, the ba’oh calls to you Ooooooooohhh Oooooooooh Time of rain Time of water Time of rain Welcome

I couldn’t join them. I had a horrible cold feeling of “you don’t belong,” that made my stomach grow cold. Oshtik and Eyani quickly gave up on me and joined the circle. They were tiny shadows flitting between the larger adults. I could see Nandi and the Trio flashing between the bright patches of fire. Even Nanahan danced, though her steps were very subdued. I took out my computer pad and started taking notes.

I didn’t get more than a sentence before the pad suddenly vanished from my hands, and a blue muzzle lurched into my field of vision.

“All the clan must dance the welcome,” Kohric said. He bumped is forehead against mine. “Come.” He gape grinned at me and pulled at my wrist with his tail. I found myself smiling back.

We danced late into the night.

Flashers

Science is always soothing to me. There’s something comforting about simple observation. So today I took shameless advantage of my needing to document the local wildlife, and played the anti-social scientist; I spent the day sprawled on the cliff face with my binoculars glued to my eyeballs, watching the most recent herd of uku to pass through our territory.



They eat a lot.

A lot. I think about 90^% of today was just watching the things eat. Granted, their food source is somewhat labor intensive; the plant almost resembles bamboo in that it’s primarily a cylindrical stem with thin, lefty extremities. The uku have no interest in the leaves. Instead they use their sharp, horn-like beaks to snap off pieces of the stem, and then split the pieces open to get at the soft pulp inside. Kohric says the pulp is sweet, and the Azu-nah use it to make something a little like candied fruit (I will officially not be able to die happy if I don’t get to try at least one piece of candied koh before I croak).

Anyway, when they’re not hunting around for something to eat (which is rare), they seem to engage in a lot of … shoving. There’s definitely some sort of hierarchy in the herd, but I have a very hard time telling the individual animals apart, so I haven’t been able to pin it down. The sexes look identical, for example, and other than size and their horns being a bit blunter, the young look almost the same as the adults. This makes it tricky to tell who an individual is arguing with and why.

The shoving matches are relatively subdued for the most part; one individual will saunter up to another, broadside, and just start shoving. The two will huff and honk and push back and forth for a few minutes, and then the loser will go off and sulk. Occasionally the argument will get a little more rowdy, and the two “combatants” will start puffing the dewlap-like structure on their necks. The skin seems to be thin and very flexible, like a frigatebird’s gular pouch, and can inflate into a kind of spiky red balloon under the jaw.

One encounter, though, was even more impressive. The shoving had started as usual, and had escalated to gular-pouch-dewlap-thingy puffing. But instead of one of them breaking off and going away, they just kept at it. Maybe they were evenly matched. Whatever it was, it was enough to move to the next level of behavior. One of the two suddenly reared up on its hind legs and a huge hood expanded from its neck. The bony spikes lining each side of the neck are apparently anchors for a fleshy frill structure. There are two vibrant eye spots on the inside of the hood that are normally hidden.
They’re iridescent, and the animal rocks back and forth on its hind legs while displaying them, causing them to flash. They’re surprisingly bright. The non-displaying uku immediately backed down and trotted off to hide behind a bush.

It was fascinating. I’m dying to know if the hoods are exclusively to intimidate rivals (for what I still don’t know), if both sexes have them, and if there’s some aspect of the hood that makes one “win” a fight. I wonder if the hood is mostly used for breeding displays, like with pheasants? That’s the problem with ethology; one question answered, thirty new questions arise.

Poor Kohric. I’m going to have so many more things to ask him.

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There will be no update next week. I have a commitment I can't avoid. But hopefully I will get time to make some spiffy art for the week after.