Another Year, Another Windy Season

Here in Malawi, just like the rest of the world, there are seasons.  As best as my memory can recall, in North America there are 4 advertized seasons; Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.  In Malawi we don’t have quite such dramatic changes, but we still have seasons.  Currently we are entering the cool dry season, followed by the hot dry season which changes to the hot rainy season. 

Those are seasons in a nutshell, but what about the seasons in between the seasons, the obscure seasons that are extremely localized and specific?

What do I mean?

Well for example, in Colorado, March tends to be a useless month.  It is warming up (a little) and the snow is melting, thus, mud season. 
How about Malawi?

For starters we have the different fruit seasons, currently we are in what is probably my favorite fruit season, guava and avocado season.  FYI, Malawi avocados are way better than American avocados. Depending on what part of the country you are in there are seasons you don’t get elsewhere.  Fruits like Masuku come into season in October but you can’t get the really nice big ones in Nkhotakota, you have to go South for that.  Through the whole country you get mangos from about November until about January.  Again, it depends on the region, the last week of March I was in Dedza and I had a mango, weird. 

Then there are seasons no one mentions but are kind of implied.  Everyone knows that this time of year is the cool season but my first year here no one bothered to tell me that is doubled as the windy season.  From now until maybe August it will be windy, lots of windy.  At first I thought the windy season was great, it was cooler, no more rain, clothes were drying in one day on the line, and then I went for a bike ride. Biking in the wind sucks.  A lot. There are a few hills on the ride in to Nkhotakota and while they were bad at first I’ve gotten used to them but biking up them in a head wind really adds a certain special something.  Kind of like a shooting pain in my legs, that kind of special something.  It wouldn’t be so bad if it would actually work with me, you know a little tail wind would be great, but this place does the opposite of a tail wind.  Whenever I bike it is in a head wind. 

At first I thought, “ok, headwind on the way in but tail wind on the way home!” nope. Whenever I bike, anywhere I bike, it is in a headwind.  The laws of nature will actively conspire against me to see to it that I bike in a head wind.  Someone should call NASA, they may be interested in this.  It may be affecting ocean currents as well so call NOAA while you’re at it. 

And the unfair part is that I will adjust to biking in the wind and then the wind will stop.  Then it will be time to bike in the heat, exactly when you actually want the wind.  Go figure.

Also, now is the start of elephant season.  I believe we touched on this last year, the elephants situation here.  Well they’re back.  Two nights ago to be specific, a herd came out and ate a few maize fields. Because this time of the year is when maize is ready to be harvested the elephants come out and make a meal of a few fields in a night.  So I’ll let you know how things progress with the elephants this year. 

Other than all that I would like to announce that my group has hit the one year mark.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I’ve survived intact in Africa for a whole year.  The old group has left, they are all back in the states and the new health/environment group swears in on May 2^nd so welcome to them and we’ll miss you to the old group! This time next year I’ll be seeing you all back in the States and wishing good luck to the group replacing mine.