Fair example of prevailing local conditions here, in this moderately down-at-heel corner on Sabang, Jakarta. And not only here, you would wager. For the first day or two passing along the strip, the sprinkles from a blue sky overhead had puzzled. A foreigner could not be expected to judge skies in other lands, nor light-seeming, high cumulus. It was the rainy season after all, tail-end, supposedly. Gerimis was the term for faint, lightest drops, usually distinct and unmistakeable. ("E” elided.) As the days passed on Sabang, the mystery deepened, puzzled and actually annoyed, before finally, belatedly, the realization dawned. 'Twas not the fabled grimis at all one was wearing here. No! Wrong. Au contraire. Not sourced from the upper reaches of the empyrean, where the gods & angels oversaw the Creation; properly speaking. Rather, bolted above outta sight, leaking A/C units, from one end of the street to the other. Day three/four at the café, a chap came out with mop and bucket to soak up the pools that had formed in hollows either side of the entry. The chap’s unhappy turn on the detail. Early days in the corner seat up front, the occasional spay had one looking out for drifts angling in from outside the shop. Just today, a pretty office girl in tight skirt & blouse, grimacing as she passed, carried a flap of cardboard for cover. The length of the street the lass must have traversed—without some kind of shield, asking for trouble. (The better salons were mahal, banyak mahal; plenty pricey.)
NB. In the East of Java particularly, but also Central and West, there were floods the previous day, late in the season.
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