"Likolo Mabe" means "Bad Sky"

Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about this photo is that it was taken during the dark of night. Because of the thick storm clouds, there was not even any moonlight or starlight. Even the lightning bugs were taking cover. All illumination in this picture is from the lightning bolt itself. This village has no electricity to see by - only lamps and firelight. Every time I see this picture I feel loved. I'll tell you why. It is a frame of a video I shot on the night that Jacob and I moved into our little house in Bodjia. We were eating a delicious dinner by lamplight of fish freshly caught that day out of the Congo River (a short walk away) when a large thunderstorm arose. This was common and happened frequently in the evening when the sun went down. Well, as I was eating, the thought popped into my head that I might be able to record some of the flashes from the clouds and some thunder if I stepped outside onto the porch with my camera. Thirty seven seconds after starting the video, "bam!" The village was illuminated as if it were noonday followed by a huge thunder crash. Timing like that can not be a coincidence.





Here's the video showing just the lightning and thunder. I don't want to bore you by playing the whole video. Okay, okay. So the real reason why I don't want to play the whole video is because I sound like a total idiot on it. As soon as the thunder is over, I start shouting, "I caught that on video! Woo hoo!" I always chuckle a bit on those reality shows where people talk about how amazing the thing was that they just videotaped - like we all don't realize it was amazing. They invariably sound a little silly. But then I found myself doing the exact same thing! You just can't help sounding like an excited kid when something incredible like this happens to you.

Okay, fine. Now that you're curious about how idiotic I sounded, I'll swallow my pride and let you hear all of it. Actually, it's kind of fun to hear all the sounds of the village in the background. In the beginning you can hear Jacob and Bruno speaking french, still sitting around the dinner table inside.








It was actually fairly common for us to see trees destroyed in this fashion following severe storms. This tree was just a bit further down the red dirt road seen in the first lightning shot. It was a different bolt that destroyed this tree, however. We felt safe from the lightning - maybe more safe than we actually were - because there were so many tall trees around and we always took cover in short buildings away from the tall trees. If anything were to be struck by lightning, we figured it would be a tree such as this one.