There had been no rains for four months. The effects of the drought were beginning to tell on the land. Cattle were dying, crops were dying and worse than that, people were dying to. The Chief sent for the Fetish Priestess. She was lost. Sacrifices were made but to no avail. Across the river and beyond the forest of Akatamanso however there was one who could make it rain, he was the rain maker.
The rain maker was a short man, almost like a dwarf but not quite a dwarf. His large eyes and bald head gave him a most fiendish look but he wasn’t fiendish. He smiled at everyone when he spoke and played freely with the little children in the sand as though he was one of them. Legend had it that with each generation gave a rain maker. That person could make the clouds cry or laugh, depending on how you look at it, and bring about rainfall.

I had never seen a rain maker make rain before. It was exciting watching him make the fire. He gathered some old twigs the town in center and with two stones made the fire. Then he placed some herbs into it. The smoke that came out had a pleasant sort of smell. Then he begun to dance, first gently and then almost as if something had possessed him. We watched on. We waited. When he had danced
enough, he put out the fire and cleaned up the little mess that had been caused. Silently, without as much as a good bye to anybody, he went into the dark woods.

We thought he had failed. Dejected we went to our homes. Four months of no rains, the wells had even dried up. Suddenly we heard the sound. Like many racing horses, nay it couldn’t have been horses! It was the gathering of the clouds. That night it rained! The rain maker had indeed made rain. How he did it, I can still not tell today and science cannot explain.