I have always been fascinated by lightning. It was a rare thing for us growing up in Victoria and so was always exciting when a stormy night came along with thunder and lightning. We would stay up at night just to listen to it, cuddled up on the floor in the living room, me, mom and Sarah. When we moved to Florida it was commonplace for everyone else, but it still caught my attention. I would sit in our screened in porch and watch the lightning light up the distance. Not being all that familiar with lightning I hadn't yet earned a healthy respect for it until we heard reports of farm workers dying from lightning strikes nearby. I was once caught out in a storm on the farm and had to take shelter for an hour with my rabbits in their hut for fear of being struck on my way home. Lightning is a truly amazing thing, all that energy all balled up and then thrown out of the heavens in one distinct, frightening path of light that can destroy things instantly. Like satellite phones for example.
We have our share of lightning here in the Central African tropics and this being rainy season we see it every week. It never ceases to amaze me, and I listen for it the same way we used to listen for the train whistle everyday when we were kids, when we would run out to meet the nightly train passing by our house. After receiving warnings from Roy about the destruction lightning can cause inside homes here, travelling through electrical lines, we quickly learned that when a storm is approaching we need unplug everything, computers, radios and phones, including the phone antenna, which sits on the roof of our house. Last night we heard a storm far off in the distance and we went to bed before it snuck up on us in Gamboula. We woke up to a loud CRACK and instantly Darren jumped out of bed to unplug everything, but too late. The lightning struck the short-wave radio antenna in a building 50 metres from our house. The energy was so great to have travelled through the electrical circuitry of the station tripping circuits at the hospital and agroforesterie and travelling up into our satellite phone. Darren knew instantly that our thousand dollar piece of marvellous technology had taken a direct hit and we mourned the loss all night in a fitful sleep. It isn't completely dead as it will still make phone calls but some part of it is damaged to the point that it will no longer make data calls, in other words, send e-mail, nor will it charge the battery on AC power. Fortunately we have wonderfully generous neighbours who are willing to let us use their phone system and we are trying to get our phone credit transferred to their number. We will try sending the phone back to the states for repairs but have little hope it will make it back here before our term is over.
While I remain fascinated by lightning, even as I sit here this afternoon typing in the middle of a rain storm, I can now hear the anger in the voice of the thunder calling out its vengeance on unsuspecting citizens of earth who may be unlucky enough to meet the wrath of its force. It is otherwise an amazing and beautiful thing, but it really sucks when it strikes you!
