How’s Africa? — The Dry Season

Whenever anyone asks me “How’s Africa?” my first thought goes to the weather. This aspect is the easiest to explain and the most surprising. Most people imagine Africa as a land of intense heat and sun. While the latter is true — our sunshine is very intense — the former isn’t always.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Located at the confluence of the Missouri, Meramec, and Mississippi Rivers, we had a lock on heat and humidity in the summer. Those dog days of summer where the daytime highs were in the 100s (and the nighttime lows only fell into the upper 80s) and the humidity hovered around 100% were miserable. You just hunkered down and waited for it to be over. Even swimming pool water offered little relief because it felt as warm as bath water.

I expected Uganda to be much the same. It only has two seasons, rainy and dry. I expected the rainy season to be like St. Louis summers and the dry season to be hot, without the humidity. I was wrong.

Right now we’re in the dry season. The days are usually sunny and warm. My weather app says the highs are in the mid 80s but when you factor in the sunshine, it feels more like the upper 80s to low 90s.

Naturally, it’s very dry. We don’t get any rain for over two months. We can hang a load of laundry and have it completely dry in less time than it takes to wash the next load. 

(Isn’t that the cutest little laundress you’ve ever seen? 😀 She wanted to help hang the laundry so badly that she carried the stool out there and set to work hanging the load.)

Nighttime temps in the dry season drop into the low 60s or upper 50s. After the heat of the day, the cool nights feel almost cold. 

Little by little, everything dries up. The grass gets brown. The dirt from the roads forms a layer of dust on all the foliage lining the edges. It even forms a layer of dust on all the people walking on them. (Once, a friend and I walked to the market and we came back with a outline of dust around where our sunglasses had been on our faces. It gets pretty bad out there.) It’s usually windy during the dry season, which blows the dust around even further.

I’m always happy when the first rains of the rainy season fall because they wash the dust off everything and turn it all green again. But more on that later.

(As I write this, there is a 40% chance of rain for this afternoon. Hah! It would be nice, but I doubt it will happen!)