Harmattan Reprieve

Thursday March 18th, the sky grew all white again, hazey so that you couldn't see the mountains clearly, as Harmattan dust rolled in. Strange, as usually this is in January, February, but one could say that weather here is all scrambled up this year, with the hot season arriving a month early and then we actually had a rainstorm Tuesday the 16th! The first time ever (at least in peoples memories) having rain in March in Garoua! Anyway the Harmattan came again Thursday, a storm somewhere in the Sahara kicking up dust, and this dust blowing with the wind and settling all over West/Central Africa. Even in the South of Cameroon, I think, they had fuzy skies. It's really something, covering everything slowly, over the course of a week with a coating of white dust, which makes my house look like it's been unlived in for a year. I'm waiting to clean it until it actually finishes, although it looks like its starting to lift. On the worst days I couldn't see the mountains right behind my house, or for that matter trees 500 meters away. Attached is a video of what it looks like, as well as my effort to demonstrate the amount of dust settling on all the plants, turning them all white! Everything grey, grey, grey. The beautiful thing is that we are granted a reprieve of the heat! The suns heat doesn't make its way through the dust either, so the temperatures for one week were much cooler, which was lovely, including 72 degree mornings!

the green leaves are those I wiped off the dust from. The others are those covered with dust!

View from behind my house in my latrine area