Harvest-starved peasants may have celebrated too soon. After about 40 days of intensive rainfall in arable parts of the country, hopes of a bumper harvest were rising.
Rains that are likely to yield a generous harvest come in three waves: there is the planting wave, which eventually gives way to a weeding break. Then follows the second wave, which supports crop flowering and pollination.
The first and second waves give promise when they are regular and moderately heavy. The third wave, which comes after flowering and pollination, is usually moderate. Better still if the instalment comes in frequent showers called ajiki.
The ajiki phase does not have to flood farms, so long as water sips to the roots. The soil can retain moisture for days. Ajiki rains, which don't fall with heavy strokes, can last up to three or more hours of continuous drizzle.
The first and second waves of rain this season were unpredictably heavy. There was a three-week weeding break. The intensity and quality of weeding during the second wave determine the volume of returns from the farm.
The third wave, which crops, especially maize and millet, need to mature, has been reluctant. Black cotton soils were still moist because they retain water longer. Crops on loamy soils were beginning to wither. Covers of maize cobs were starting to shrivel.
The possibility of unga prices coming down, based on expected harvest, was beginning to dwindle.
By the middle of the second wave in the dying days of April, optimists could count, to the date, when prices of unga would plummet. They were certain of a bumper harvest.
Weaver birds were celebrating the coming season of plenty. The lush green maize and millet fields showed great promise.
The optimism rode on the resilience of the peasantry. The spiritually inclined were hopeful God would not allow humanity to suffer a sixth season of massive crop failure.
It can now be confirmed doubts and anxiety are still growing, after the rains stopped, for more than three weeks, like a comma in a poetic sentence. Before the age of climate change, the rainy season didn't stop, completely, suddenly, like a referee blowing the final whistle at the end of a 90-minute football match.
The rainy season would slow down and then fizzle out. It was like some natural force was rationing rainfall on demand, knowing maturing crops don't need much water. There was science to the regulation of rainfall. Nature was in charge. Ice on the tree-covered mountains meant water in the plains. Rivers flowed, calmly, with dazzling blue waters.
Not any more, after water towers were invaded. The seasons are unpredictable. Meteorologists find it harder to predict the unpredictable. They had, in March, forecast the rains would be depressed and short-lived. The short part was confirmed. The depressed side of the prediction wasn't accurate.
The rains were heavy, and destructive in some places. It was like the rainy season's fall arrived in 40 days, rather than the average, modulated 60 to ensure a reasonable harvest.
Although the predicted El Niño-type of rainfall in the last quarter of the year is still four months away, the sudden stop of the rains after a heavy shortfall presents a challenge to farmers, and a further planning lesson to policy quacks.
There is some little hope to nurse – it rained in some parts of western Kenya on Friday evening. A repeat may see unga prices falling in August.
The thin thread of hope sends a strong message: that nothing has been learnt from the vicious cycle of droughts and floods. Some of the runoff water should have been harvested and stored for irrigation.
