Home » Benin » Sharp Boogers, or Sharing the Love

Harmattan has arrived. Harmattan is a wind that blows from the north, from the Sahara desert. The wind carries dust, and it’s the dust that blocks the sunlight and creates “winter” in equatorial West Africa.

Sharp Boogers, or Sharing the Love

Erika Kraus
2007-01-23 13:28:50

Displayed times (last time: )

Harmattan has arrived. Harmattan is a wind that blows from the north, from the Sahara desert. The wind carries dust, and it’s the dust that blocks the sunlight and creates “winter” in equatorial West Africa.

To me, Harmattan is as close to winter as I will get for some time still to come. I am colder than I was during the rainy season, and more regularly. I close all the doors and cover with a sheet every night. I sleep all the night through, no dripping sweat to awake me, and I get out of bed slowly, wearing two pagnes and socks, or pants if they’re clean, and heat my water for coffee and a warm bath. And I still shiver, until 10h or so, when the sun has sufficiently heated the porch to be warm on my toes.

Imelda ran away again today, but only to come visit me. I told her about winter in Kansas, how I wear pants, socks, two shirts, hat, and gloves and coat, and go inside to sit next to the fire, or sit on the couch with a blanket. Then I am warm.
“Oh, je vais mourir (I would die),” she says.

No no, you would get used to it. It’s not scary, it’s beautiful. With fresh snow covering the ground and an evergreen on the landscape, you can’t help but be pleased. And if you bundle up and go for a walk to see birds (more easily now, since most of the leaves are gone from the trees), you can be warm and enjoy the snow. Except for your nose, that’s rather always cold.

We were studying pictures to better understand:
“C’est quoi sur les arbres (what’s on the trees?),” she asks.

That’s ice! Snow on the ground, ice on the trees. Rain fell during the night- when the sun goes down, it really is cold- and since it was so cold, the rain turned to ice instantaneously.

“Oh, je vais mourir.”
I look around my world and see winter- the sun is my fire, bath water my ice. Dust, from the Harmattan winds, my snow. Except the West African snow, this Saharan dust, gets everywhere, ...