Her husband worked as a cabby on a scooter with wooden wheels. In dry weather he would carry thunderclouds from the African continent where they were in abundance. The clouds were heavy, pregnant with moisture, but still they were lighter than the air. The cabby would tie them up with a jute cord and dragged to Madagascar. The clouds collided like a bundle of balloons, and thunder roared, and lightning played in the sky. But still the clouds followed obediently the wooden scooter.   

In a village near to Besalampu he would untie the clouds and let it go. The clouds went up and were driven to the sea by the wind, exposing the red dry soil to the ruthless sun heat. 

After that he would go through the Mozambican Gulf, sewn onto the map by his wife, to a location of Antonia Enes to collect the new clouds.  

Before the map got worn off, he would have made trips to Africa so often that his wife became jealous of his possible love affair on the opposite shore. 

“No” said the cabby. “It’s because the clouds do not stay over the island. This is why I have to shuttle. Where do they always get to?” 

“You are tired. I shall use my Singer to sew the clouds onto the western shore. And when we get brown off with a dull weather, we shall just let the clouds go.”  

“All right, and I shall be able to repair my scooter in the mean time” said the husband.

So the wife went to the brink of the land and overstitched the clouds to the island. Much as she trusted her husband, she ripped out the isthmus with a rusty Gillette blade.   

I met her on her way home. She walked looking content with the work done and carrying the Singer on her head.

And a Uganda beauty is walking in the rain, carrying something wrapped up in a nice kerchief. That might be a dowry.  

And what about me? Oh Lord, what am I driveling about now?