monsoon afternoon

My prayers were answered this afternoon and a long, cool, rainstorm swept over Dhaka and cooled the city down a few thousand degrees. Although the streets flooded almost instantaneously with sewage and trash, I was thankful. The heat is driving me out of my gourd.

I was stuck in the Nari Jibon office when the skies opened and millions of gallons of water issued from the clouds, and I was alarmed by a sharp and persistent banging sound on the surrounding tin roofs. My friend Sultana pointed out to me that "shil" was falling, and when I bashfully admitted I had no idea what she was talking about, she picked a piece of hail--actual ice in Bangladesh--off the ground. I am a self-proclaimed dunce when it comes to science, so I was (and still am, even after a few Google searches) baffled as to how ice could fall from the sky of a tropical country. Sultana says that the wind picks it up from Kashmir and blows it over to Bangladesh. I guess even the ice in Bangladesh is imported.