A new season has started: the dry season. When I left my village in October, we were finishing off the last of the six months of rainy season. Since my return in November, there has not been a drop of rain in my village and shouldn't be for another six months.
The dry season has brought a number of changes with it. As would be expected, the puddles in the dirt roads' massive potholes have dried out, plant life is turning yellow and dying, and the roads are transforming into beaches thick with sand. As the sun sets, a thick layer of dusty haze fills the air.
The weather remains hot and uncomfortable during the day, but the evenings and early mornings are nippy as the mini-season of harmattan begins. Harmattan is the dry, cool, windy season that I have been eagerly anticipating since my arrival. Villagers warn me that I will want close-toed shoes and long sleeves. I am told that the season will be full throttle by Christmas and will last a few months.
The dry season brings along a number of dietary changes. Guinea fowl only produce eggs during the rains, and since chicken eggs are rarely eaten here, eggs have gone from omnipresent to completely absent. Cows produce significantly less milk during the dry season because there is less to forage on, so milk and cheese have become extremely rare. Tomatoes are fewer and more expensive. Essentially, my diet has been reduced to starch. The only upside I have seen in terms of food is that honey has flooded the market and can be purchased cheaply ($2 per liter).
Another infiltration that I am less fond of is the lizards. They are more numerous than before, notably in my house. For some unfortunate reason, my bedroom is their favorite hangout.
The start of the dry season also means that the growing season is nearing its end. Villagers are quite busy during the rains, but I have always been told that they have more free time when the field work is over in the dry season. The difference is obvious already. For example, with the change in seasons, our pre-natal visits at the health center have doubled from 50 per week to 100 (and the pregnant women are actually gaining weight, whereas before, their weight was stable or dropped during pregnancy because they toiled so hard in the fields).
The new abundance of time has also sprung a series of municipal projects. The neglected maternity center project got its porch tiled, and the village's water pump system was fixed after having been out of order for eight months.
But perhaps the most exciting new undertaking is the line of electricity poles that sprung up in early November. That said, at the rate at which things progress here, I will be lucky if my house can get an electrical hook-up before I leave in September 2014.
This all sounds like another new adventure. How does one stay healthy on starch alone? Clues from the villagers will be helpful, but then you'll have to be creative. You haven't mentioned the water supply which, I assume, is an additional challenge. How do you get water during the monsoon?
ReplyDeleteElectricity!!! Eureka!! Maybe you need to get out with the workers to encourage and praise, so they'll work faster and harder. :)
Jean Ralley
I've since discovered other changes the dry season brings. Now that the plant life is dying, I can see so many things that used to be hidden by the greenery: footpaths, clumps of houses, and trash. I had always wondered why I didn't see more trash, and now I know that it's because the trash was hiding in the brush. Now that the brush is gone, there's trash everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that the villagers will have many ideas about how to find something other than starch to eat. I think the dominance of starch in their diet, especially during the dry season, is a big health problem here. There isn't much protein, and fruits and vegetables are quite rare...until the hot season, when mangoes abound. That's one silver lining to 120 degree heat!
Yesterday I was introduced to the head of the electricity project. I asked if my neighbors and I were going to be the only ones in the whole village without electricity since the poles don't extend to us. The project head said that they will eventually install poles out to my house. He said everything should be set up after the holidays and that the whole system should be ready for use by February. I'm not holding my breath, though, because I have heard of other villages that have gotten this far and then waited a year or more and still don't have electricity.