Harmattan

A dry and dusty West African trade wind. It blows south from the Sahara, picking up large amounts of fine dust particles which are carried across West Africa, for hundreds of kilometres out over the Atlantic Ocean.

It's 'cool season', which means that early in the morning you see locals dressed in big warm jackets, gloves, hats... I wore a cardigan twice in the morning to work during the entire season... so 'cool' season depends on your perspective.

Harmattan. Nobody can wait til its over. There's a haze that just hangs around, all the time, and you can't see more than 500metres away at times.... The sun is amazing, big and bright, the glare is diffused by all the sands, so you can look directly at it without burning your eyeballs.

It's interesting. Instead of teaching my kindergarteners about summer and winter, I teach them about Harmattan. It doesn't make for an interesting weather discussion each morning during circle time... 'What's the weather today?' "CLOUDY!"  Because thats the closest thing our Westernised classroom weather calendar has on it.
Last week as I was walking in the morning with my class, there was a slight mist combined with the dust. The children wanted to chase and catch after it. I remember doing that when I was a kid... you want to be able to stand right in the middle of the fog so you can't see anything, but you never seem to get right in the middle of it.
One boy said 'Mrs Archer, did you feel that?!' 'It's snowing!!!! I felt it on my cheek!' To which the rest of the class took up the cry, 'It's snowing!! It's snowing!!'.... I guess it kind of was!
At the moment, I really want it to be over. I blame the constant inhalation of fine dust for my current chest infection...
It nearly is over though, the last week has brought some small windows of blue sky, and a friend even saw stars the other night... Let the wind blow the sands right away!