Rain, rain...please don't go away. Come back!

Pink lotus flower

Anyone who has lived in Malaysia or in neighboring countries will humorously tell you there are two seasons, the wet season and the wetter season. The two seasons actually being referred to as the dry season and the wet season. Being very close to the equator means that there aren't the four seasons we know of in the United States but a constant climate which varies only in the amount of rain. So this humorous comment on seasons exists because during the wet season you can be guaranteed torrential rain everyday in K.L. while during the dry season it rains cats and dogs only a couple days a week.

Because it rains so frequently, agriculture in Malaysia doesn't require the irrigation systems you would find in areas where rain cannot be counted on to provide the necessary water for crops. Moreover, sprinkler systems for landscapes are far and few between because why would you spend money on something to provide water to plants when it isn't necessary in this weather.

So when you find out it hasn't rained at the zoo since December 18th, you can understand how odd that is and how much it affects the flora. This drought has been bad enough that there are reports that shortages of water will probably be occurring within the next week, and the government has been looking into cloud seeding though highly unlikely to occur. It is dry enough that for the first time ever I saw my old high school’s sports field being watered by sprinkler, which I didn't even know existed.

Because of the lack of rain the workers for P&G have had to resort to hand watering the entirety of the zoo. This has been going on for close to two months now, so a lot of time and funds are being spent on watering. As result, the department has been dropping a 3in diameter hose into the river, which flows through the zoo, and pumping up water to be used on the grounds. This is being done in part because it saves the zoo’s funds, which being a NGO means they are limited, and because water spigots haven’t been placed  throughout the zoo grounds, so it’s more effective for them to run six 100m hoses from a pump at once versus combining the hoses to reach the same location.

White lotus flower

Almost everyday someone on staff comments on how it needs to rain, and whenever I come back from being in the nursery all day, Eza asks me for a status on the plants and how badly the lack of rain is affecting them. The nursery probably is the least concern, from where I’m standing, because the plants are close together and in shade for a large part. Consequently, my response tends to be something along the lines about them looking the same as always and not really wilted. But the lotus plants and water lilies, growing in pots, have needed watering almost every day to prevent the water level from dropping down to the mud.