The Changing of the Seasons

It rained here for the first time this season. Well, not quite. The first time it rained this season in Khorixas I was in Windhoek, but I’m not counting that since I wasn’t here. You know that smell when it rains for the first time after summer? The smell of oil coming off the road and all the dust sort of settling and just behind it you can smell a hint of something else? Well, there aren’t a whole lot of roads here so when it rains you just get that “something else”. I think that oil smell overpowers this other smell and I never got to really appreciate it until now. It’s sort of that earth smell that all the natural soaps try to chemically push into your skin. Except they totally miss the mark and we get such fragrances as “spring morning” and “summer mist” which really all smell the way a hazy picture of a bad copy of a mediocre painting looks: you can tell what they were going for, but it’s so far removed from the original that you just hide it away in a cabinet. But this is off topic. The point is that it’s one of the most pleasant and refreshing sensations.

I was sitting in my room at home when the thunder first started. It had been excruciatingly hot that day which is the first clue that it will probably rain. It’s like clockwork here. It gets painfully hot (I mean more hot than normal) and that sticky sort of humid about twelve hours before it rains. The clouds roll in about three hours before the thunder and then those first big drops start. A long time ago (okay so it was only eight or nine months, but it seems like a long time) I mentioned that the raindrops are bigger here. I looked this up in the Grade 11/12 Geography book and figured out that it is because convection currents form the rain. Warning! This nerd is about to nerd-out! That hot air that forms before the clouds arrive rises up forming thunderheads and then as it cools the air is forced down through the cloud making bigger raindrops. So those big drops started falling on my metal roof and I went outside to see the cloud rolling in. When it really started coming down I went outside to stand in the road. My road is sandy dirt and the little pockmarks being made by each drop made the dirt look like it was rippling. So I stood there watching the road wave and enjoyed the fresh smell and sound of rain falling for the first time. One of my students came around the corner with a bag over her head, squinting to keep the rain out of her eyes. She started laughing at the sight of me standing there in the middle of the road by myself and asked if I was having fun. I knew I wouldn’t be able to explain it so I just said, “yes.”

And so starts the “rainy season” here. I’ve heard people refer to the different seasons here the same way we would at home, but the changes just aren’t there. The rain marks the change from spring to summer here, but the temperatures are mostly the same and the only difference is the remote possibility of rain. The “winter” is the same temperature during the day, colder at night, and no rain. This has led me to the conclusion that Namibia, and I suspect several other countries, need to abandon the Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter seasons and adopt something a little more true to their weather patterns. Some suggestions:

The Rain Seasons. The Rain Seasons would consist of two seasons named Hot & Dry and Hot & Wet. The Hot & Wet season would last from October to February and the Hot & Dry season would be all the other months. Although this is descriptive, it’s not nearly as fun as…

The Shower Seasons. This would give each season a number depending on how many times a day I take a shower. The hottest times of the year from December to March would be the “2-Shower” season, March to May and September to November would be the “1-Shower” seasons and June to August would be the “Few-Shower” season, also known as “AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” since I don’t have any hot water and the cold lows make for painfully cold water waiting for me in the pipes.

The Learner Complaint Seasons. The schools could have their own seasons based on the main reasons the students don’t want to be in class. Second term from May to August would be “The class is too cold!” Third term from September to November would be “The class is too hot!” Having used up two-thirds of the Goldie-Locks model of complaining, first term would need to remain nameless. The month of December is also completely left out of this model since no one is in school for that month.

The Government Budget Seasons. Another possible school based season model that could be expanded to fit all government offices. January to April would be “Government funds for everyone!” May to August would be “Government funds only to friends and family!” and September to December would be “Government funds to no one!” or “Let’s rack up massive debt!” I think these seasons might be a little too honest and way too wordy. Can you imagine the question, “Where are you going for the Government-funds-only-to-friends-and-family holiday?” or “I’m so tired of these Let’s-rack-up-massive-debt rains, I wish Government-funds-for-everyone would start.”

Bugs Seasons. The bugs provide a pretty good measure of the seasons. There could be the “No bugs” season in the middle of the year which is surrounded by the “Some bugs” seasons. At the beginning of the year there would be a short season called “Biblical plagues” where the windows get covered with moths and termites every night. This is also the season for home improvements since it will show you exactly where the holes are in the screens.

Well, whatever you want to call it, I’ve definitely felt the change into the Some-bugs, Let’s-rack-up-massive-debt, The-class-is-too-hot, One-shower, Hot-and-wet season.