In times of drought, the grass cover shrivels and sand grains and pebbles are aglow under the sun. All growth is stunted by the lack of liquid and livestock graze grass tufts down to their roots. Temperatures soar soon after sunrise.
The sky is a cloudless blue, making warm-blooded creatures scurry towards cover, even if it is only a ribbon of shade under a shrub. You can still find traces of water in the Karas Mountains’ quartzite and granite crevices and in dams that are shrivelling up, giving way to mud cracking into clay continents divided by deep slashes and chasms. After months of uninterrupted blue days, clouds begin to dot the sky again.
But they are small and too far away to induce rain. But then, the first gigantic mushroom-like cumulonimbus cloud looms purple and ominous. The stem rises boldly and forms a table top or anvil.
Cloud mountain ranges ascend dramatically. Eventually, the clouds reveal their dark blue undersides and allow the sun to pierce through intermittently. Swirls of cloud sweep across the sky and one can see, in the distance, the first curtains of rain.
Some of them try to reach the soil but are drawn up again by powerful updrafts. A double rainbow throws its colour constellation across the sky. The enormous clouds do not only store water but harbour electric fields.
Lightning races downward, forking rapidly and repeatedly. At times, lightning slashes across the horizon. Silence is followed by a thunder clap.
When the rain pounds down, the elect.