** Transcribed from the original manuscript **

Yesterday I discovered that the word in the Toto song ‘Africa’ is ‘bless’, not ‘miss.’ I always knew it as ‘miss.’ Obviously, it should be ‘miss.’

I miss the rains in Africa. Every afternoon at 4pm A.T. they would sweep up from the lake, hundreds of miles away. A.T. That’s African Time. I shall get there when I get there. You will know it is time when it is time.

Like a gray curtain, woven of dreams and memories, the rains approach over the field, hiding what is behind them. The curtain climbs laboriously up the hill until it pauses on the other side of the road. It is dry here, and pouring over there. Looking both ways, the rain crosses the road, and now it is all around me, soaking me, hiding me, whispering secrets brought up from the lowlands.

And then the rain passes, the back side of the curtain climbing the hill, and now it is raining there, and here is only the sweet smell of wet grass and the drips from the big tree.

I miss the rains.

The rains bless me.