The start of this rainy season has shown a clear difference between north-eastern and south-western Kenya. While in the rift valley and Lake Victoria regions it rained heavily for a fortnight in a row, causing worrying flooding and leaving thousands of people homeless (as it does every year), not a drop of rain has yet been seen between Kilifi and Lamu and the immediate hinterland.
A few drizzles at the end of April, small dustings of water at night and then no more.
While the capital, Nairobi, flooded profusely, with images of streets completely invaded by rivers of water and mud, cars disappearing in the floodwaters and whole areas of the city unusable, in the coastal towns the weather service reported 0.0 millilitres in almost all areas. The drought is particularly severe in the areas of Marafa and Langobaya, although paradoxically (but not so paradoxically for those who know these areas) the Sabaki River has swollen in recent days, due to the rains that have fallen in the north, where the river, which in its upper course and as far as Tsavo is called Galana, has its sources.
The effect of this climatic rift, which seems to divide Kenya in two above and below the equator, is affecting coastal agriculture. Wheat fields struggle to grow their plants, with the risk that they will dry up and die before they receive their first blessed water.
While in the Homa Bay region, with houses floating and land rendered uninhabitable by mud, crops are going up in smoke because of too much rainfall, in Kilifi and Tana River Counties, livestock are starving for lack of grass.
Two sides of the same coin, poverty and the indifference of the entire world, accentuated by climate change to which man has given a decisive push.
A second wave is expected in the coming weeks, with the hope that this time it will not be the south that has to bear the brunt of the floods and disasters, as has happened in past years.