Rain. Oh my word. Rain in Uganda is a completely different species of rain.
You cannot compare Ugandan rain to British rain. You just can’t.
In the UK, it can rain for an entire day, and by the end of it, you’re still left wondering whether it actually rained. You look outside and think, “Oh, it’s a bit damp.”
That’s British rain.
British rain is essentially like someone standing outside with a plant mister.
But Ugandan rain?
Ugandan rain arrives with an agenda.
It can go from absolutely nothing to biblical proportions in about thirty seconds. One minute, you’re sitting there thinking, “Lovely day.” The next minute, you’re wondering whether you should start building an ark.
And it doesn’t even need to rain for very long.
Thirty minutes. That’s all it takes.
Thirty minutes of proper Ugandan rain, and you could probably fill 100 buckets.
I keep thinking about the bridge at Great Paxton back home. Anyone who knows St. Neots will understand what I mean. I reckon if we dropped thirty minutes of Ugandan rain on that bridge, you’d come back to the bridge underwater and a man in snorkelling gear guiding the long route into St Neots!!
The field behind my parents’ house? Gone. Absolutely gone. You’d need a canoe. The isle of Ellington Thorpe and not the great British Isles!!
And here’s how ridiculous it can get.
It was actually raining in my bedroom.
Not just outside my bedroom. In my bedroom.
The rain was coming down so heavily that we had to move my bed—who knew I’d be doing a furniture shuffle in the middle of a monsoon? As I strolled out of my room to confirm all the windows were shut, I suddenly dashed back in, thinking, "Which spot in here is least likely to turn into a swimming pool?" I shouted to the girls to move their mattresses away from the windows, because nothing says 'cozy night in' like dodging water in our own bedroom!
You don’t get that in Britain.
Imagine waking up in the UK and having to move your bed because it’s raining on it. You’d immediately call someone—the council, the landlord, your parents, probably even the BBC.
“Excuse me, there appears to be weather inside my house.”
And that’s the other strange thing. Here, it can absolutely flood, but then two hours later, you look outside and think, “Hang on, did that actually happen?”
The water’s gone. Everything’s drying out. The sun’s back. It’s almost like the flood never occurred.
You see the flooding around Kampala, especially in areas where the drainage isn’t great, and it can look absolutely crazy. Roads become rivers, cars start looking like boats, and everyone suddenly becomes an expert in judging whether their vehicle is amphibious.
But a couple of hours later, it’s largely gone.
In the UK, if an area flooded like that, you’d still be dealing with it days later.
And it’s not just the drainage; the two countries are completely different. The climate, the heat, the ground—everything is distinct. You simply can’t compare the two.
Then there’s the temperature.
Right now, it’s probably about 23 degrees. I’m sitting here in shorts and a T-shirt, and I’m still feeling slightly warm.
This is considered cold.
That’s the part I’m struggling with. People here are putting on extra layers and telling me it’s chilly, and I’m thinking, “Mate, this is summer in Britain.”
Then the rain starts again.
And when I say rain, I don't mean the kind where you can put your hood up and carry on walking.
No. This is rain that makes you genuinely reconsider your life choices.
You can’t drive because you can’t see. The rain comes down so heavily that it’s basically a wall. You’re sitting there behind the windscreen thinking, “Well, I’m not going anywhere for the next half an hour.”
Yesterday, we even had hail.
Not the little British hailstones that bounce off the window, making you think, “Oh, that’s interesting.”
No. These things were two or three centimetres across. Proper chunks of ice.
And you’re sitting there thinking, “Why is the sky throwing golf balls at me?”
It wasn’t even particularly warm; it was just wind, rain, hail, and absolute chaos all happening at once.
British weather can be miserable. Ugandan weather can be dramatic.
British rain says, “I might stick around for a bit.”
Ugandan rain says, “RIGHT. EVERYONE INSIDE. WE’RE FLOODING.”
And if you’re unlucky, it adds: “And I’m coming into your bedroom.”
Then, two hours later, it’s sunny again.
It’s completely different.
Our rainy storm in video form
