So here we go again. It's May and it's hot as hell and there is no rain anywhere and it's dusty. Dust all the way from the Sahara earlier this week created a haze that had people concerned. It wasn't smoke from Riverton though, not this time. This source of 'contamination' originated all the way from northern Africa.

The nights also feel like you're in Africa in the middle of the Sahara at noon. The air is still and regular standing fans serve little purpose other than to move the hot air around. So you know what comes next, right?

Next is the inevitable water lock offs. Every year, without fail, that advisory from the National Water Commission (NWC) will come. Already this week we heard that the rivers and other water sources that supply both Hermitage and Mona reservoirs are running low and water levels in both catchments are already starting to decrease.

That means we now have to start 'catch up' water at nights and take wipe downs as opposed to taking long showers like we were used to. Some people will start using fragrances more than they're used to so as to kill any smell from a body part that didn't get a proper wipe down.

If you own a car, and if you follow the rules, you won't be able to wash it for weeks at a time. If you live anywhere that's dusty, which is virtually everywhere in Kingston these days, in the next few weeks you will have to use licence plate numbers to recognise your car because every one of them will be the same colour - dirt brown.

And why does all this happen? You guessed it. It all happens because we have never found a way to maintain a constant source of water to supply the people living in the city, and of course, the wider Jamaica.

We've been through all those reasons and possible solutions a million times, but there is another long-term plan to getting rainfall back on a more consistent basis. I am sure the Met Office has information that says that rainfall has decreased dramatically over the past few decades. If memory serves me, we used to get rain in May and October; lots of rain. These days, if we get a sprinkle we would consider ourselves lucky.

The diminished rainfall is as a direct result of how we treat the environment. Jamaica is the land of wood and water, but if we continue to behave the way we have been these past few decades, very soon Jamaica will stand for the "Land of Dirt".

Look at the hills above the city and all you see are soon-to-be brown hills. They used to be trees on those hills. Now there is more concrete and steel and brown patches of earth. But it's as if we don't have an understanding of how the world works and that rainfall is part of a cycle. If you take away parts of that cycle the rainfall disappears too.

I guess it's going to take the rainfall to go away completely and us using baby wipes to clean ourselves before we understand that taking care of this land is what is going to keep us alive. Killing the land basically amounts to killing ourselves.

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