Driving in Dar es Salaam is never easy. But when it rains, it becomes a different life altogether. The streets turn into rivers. The dust becomes thick mud. The familiar shortcuts you knew dry and clean now become traps for your tires.

You can’t drive the way you usually do. You can’t trust your memory of the roads. You can’t even trust your own vehicle sometimes.
The wipers that worked yesterday are struggling today.
The headlights that showed the way on clear nights suddenly feel too dim against the heavy rain.

And worse, you realize… You are not alone on that road.

There are drivers who were never taught how to drive in the rain.
Drivers with bald tires, broken lights, wipers that just smear the windshield worse.
Some drivers are in a rush, some are angry, some are simply surviving.
You are sharing the road not only with your own struggles but with the struggles of everybody else.

And there, right there, you feel it: This is not just about how ready I am.
It is about how ready we all are.

Even if your car is in perfect condition, even if you drive with all your senses awake, you still must face the reality that others are not as prepared. You are only as safe as the least careful person next to you.

And is that not life itself?

We prepare ourselves.
We study.
We pray.
We train our minds to be strong.
We polish our values.
We say, “I am ready.”

But life does not only bring you your own test papers. It brings you the exams of others, the storms of others, the accidents caused not by your own fault but by the collisions of this shared human journey.

Sometimes we prepare, but we prepare for summer, and then life sends rain. Sometimes we carry an umbrella, but the wind blows it inside out.
Sometimes we buy the best shoes, but the ground gives way beneath us.

And so what should we do?

We prepare anyway.

We prepare even knowing that we cannot prepare for everything.
We strengthen ourselves not because storms won’t come,
but because when they come, and they will, we must not only survive them, we must still have enough heart to help others survive too.

Because rain is not the enemy. Rain is life.

It falls without asking who is ready and who is not.
It falls on the prepared and the unprepared alike.
It washes away the dust, it feeds the earth, it reminds us that life will not stay still for anyone.

Rain teaches us patience.
It teaches us to slow down, to see each other on the road, to forgive mistakes. It teaches us that even when we have done everything right, we still need grace; for ourselves and for others.

And maybe, if we understand this, maybe we will even find a way to enjoy the rain. Not by pretending it is not hard, but by understanding that beauty often hides behind difficulty.

Just like fire purifies gold,
the rain purifies our journey, washing away our illusions of control,
reminding us that endurance is more important than speed,
that compassion is more important than judgment,
and that preparation is not perfection, it is simply the willingness to keep going even when the road is flooded.

So next time it rains, in Dar es Salaam, or in your life, remember:
You cannot stop the rain.
You cannot control every driver.
You cannot prepare for every storm.

But you can prepare your heart to dance through it anyway.

You can prepare your mind to see the beauty even when the skies break open. And you can prepare your soul to remember:
We are not alone on this road.
We are all learning to drive through the rain.