Rain?

On Monday night, when I was walking through the Carlton flats, on the way to Indigenous Hospitality House, I saw this elderly lady with long white hair standing on the footpath looking up at the sky. I looked up too, to see what she was looking at, and she said, 'Rain? No going to rain.' She had an eastern European accent. I said I didn't know if it was going to rain, but it might. The sky was mostly clear. There were a few dark clouds, but they were a fair way off. She said, 'No rain. No good.' I asked if she'd heard any weather forecasts and she said she hadn't, and that she needed it to rain so the plants she was growing in the community garden wouldn't die.

Yesterday afternoon I was walking up to IHH again. It was a lot earlier, so this time there were a lot of kids playing in the playground, with their mums watching. Most of the women and girls were wearing hijabs. The same elderly lady was there, and she was a lot happier, because there were a lot of dark clouds this time, and it was just starting to rain a little bit.

I asked her what she was growing in the garden, and she said, 'Parsley and silverbeet.' As I was leaving, one of the Islamic women came over to her with some clothes, and asked if she'd like them.