The Philippines has two seasons: the dry and the wet. For most of the country, the rainy season is from June to October, with August experiencing the heaviest rains. For Siargao, the rains start around November and end in March, with February getting the most rainfall.

That was before climate change. Now, there no longer seem to be distinct seasons and, for me, there seem to be more rainy days than sunny ones in Siargao. Even on the clearest of days, it’s not unusual for an errant cloud to blow your way and, literally, rain on your parade for a good ten minutes or so before giving the sky back to the sun.

I hate the rainy season. I’ve always tried to avoid it. In Manila and in Siargao. “Dodging the rain”, I call it.

This is not some light, romantic rain we’re talking about. This is dark, depressing, will-to-live zapping kind of rain. (Internet file photo.)

While I do not mind a little rain, I do mind when it’s been coming down in sheets for days and a curtain of gray has been drawn around you so that night and day become indistinguishable; when your backyard starts to resemble a lake and the roads have turned into swamplands so that stepping foot outside your front door is not even an option; when even in the confines of your own room, the damp has crept into the walls, your sheets, your books, and your bones.

The word “dreary” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

It isn’t always like this. Last year, I heard, was pleasant. There were blue skies and sunny days. There was even some surf. People were happy and life was good.

If we had forgotten what the real rainy season was like, the gods of thunder made sure that, this year, we would remember. It reclaimed the gloom and cast a long, dark shadow over the island. Every now and then, a cruel, faithless sun would peek through the clouds, long enough only to leave more people stranded on this rain-choked island.

I thought I had planned the first quarter of the year well. I was in Manila in January, when the weather was crisp and cool, and then I was traveling and wouldn’t return to Siargao until the end of the rainy season. Although I had heard stories of the monsoon-drenched months, I thought the heavens would be all cried out by now.

So I breezed onto the island rather cheekily, with Nicolas, right smack in the middle of March, not knowing that the sunshine we had rode in on would be some of the last we’d see for a while. Of course it was. It’s still March after all. What was I thinking?

Rain dodge, fail. Outside, the heavens continue to weep and wail.

I should have gone to Hamburg.