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Weather Thursday February
19 2004
Hmmm, it's not really much for variety. Right now, we are in the big dry season. The thing that comes along with the big dry season is what's called "Harmattan". The Harmattan winds start in November and go until February. It starts up in the Sahara, and blows all the way down to the bottom of West Africa, carrying dust and sand with it the whole way. Once Harmattan begins, the sky begins to get very hazy... And by hazy I mean ridiculously hazy. What was once a beautiful blue sky has been slate grey for two months now, and the beautiful mountain view that I once had from the top of Hotel Agbeviade is now gone. The mountains cannot even be seen.
It's really bad for photography, so I haven't taken many pictures in the past two months. In addition to this, it is of course very dry. I never really knew what 'dry' and 'humid' meant before I came here. Now I think I have a definition: Humid: During the wet season, the air is humid. Humid is when you stand outside for 5 minutes on one spot, and end up drenched in sweat from your eyebrows to your toenails. Dry: During the dry season, the air is dry. Dry is when you having been walking in the market all day long in 30+'C heat, and you haven't sweat a bit. Just like in the winter in Canada, lips will split during the dry season. The strangest sensation I've had is that feeling you get inside your nostrils when it's reaaaaaaally cold out... Only here you can feel the same thing when it's really hot. Hmmm... That's a pretty hard thing to describe... I'm sure nobody who read that last paragraph has any idea what I'm talking about... But if you were here you would understand. Interestingly enough, black skin seems to take dry weather a little bit harder than white skin. On particularly dry days, black skin will turn almost grey with white lines everywhere. One day last week, it actually rained for the first time in two months. The next morning, Harmattan was gone! I went outside and could see the mountains again, and the air was relatively cool. Saying goodbye to Harmattan really felt like springtime in Canada... It was very refreshing. However, in the same way that spring 'teases' us in Canada, and we might have a blizzard the day after its 20'C, Harmattan has snuck its way back. One of the nice things about Harmattan is that the nights and mornings are considerably cooler. Its makes sleeping much more comfortable. The worst experience that I had with Harmattan was when I took a 15 minute moto-taxi ride up in Kara, in the north of Togo where Harmattan is at its worst. I didn't quite protect my nostrils enough, and when the ride was done I had so much dust in my nose that it has formed little dust stones in my nostrils that SCRATCHED! I took me at least 3 days to get things cleaned out in there. Apparently Harmattan will be gone in 2-3 weeks, and after that, it just keeps getting hotter until the day I leave (Mid-March)! |
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