Storming

I have yet to figure out the weather in Mbabane. It will be cool and overcast one morning followed by heat and humidity only a few hours later. I have however, recently come to enjoy the thunderstorms. For a while I cursed them as the storms knocked out my home internet for 3 weeks, will cause intermittent power outages followed by power surges at least several times a week, and also periodically cause our apartment to lose water for hours or more at a time. Last week however, I got to fully enjoy the evening storm. I had just pulled up to the electric gate surrounding my house, only to find it wouldn't open as the power was out. Before I even had time to figure out where the manual override was the downpour started, followed by simultaneous lightning and thunder (there was no time for counting seconds between the two events). Realizing I was now stuck in my car outside my gate for the duration I waited for more than 15 minutes, watching the now hail land on my windshield and hood, hoping for no damage, and feeling the thunder rattle the car and pavement. When I finally felt safe enough I ran in through the gate (there is a door for pedestrians) and managed to watch the next 2 hours worth of lightning as it passed down the valley. Now I know why Swaziland is apparently the lightning capital of the world. I attempted to capture this event on camera, but I need a few more lessons in lightning strike photography.

I will close this story with a lesson for this holiday season from a box of wine we enjoyed this weekend; in case the image is blurry it reads, "Don't drink and walk on the road, you may be killed."