Weather

That's not fog in the distance.  That's dust.  Also notice the man on the motorcycle wearing a coat and near the center of the picture a man buying a coat on the side of the road.  

Welcome to our "winter" aka harmattan.

If dust was snow (try replacing the word snow every time you see the word dust below), we’d have a white Christmas for sure, possibly even a blizzard.  It’s harmattan season here in Dapaong (December-February), which means dry, “cold”, dusty days.

Dusty
Thankfully the dust doesn’t fall from the sky, but it does blow around a lot.  The first dust storm which we experienced started in the middle of the night.  I remember waking up around 2am and not being able to get back to sleep.  It smelled and felt like I was breathing in dust.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to realize we were experiencing a dust storm or I would have gotten up to close all the windows and cover a few things.  You live and learn!  When we woke up we could see the dust hovering in the air outside…and inside our house along with a nice layer of dust on everything throughout the house.  Thankfully, we haven’t had another dust storm since the first one, giving us time to put some things away and find coverings for bookshelves and the like.  Even without another dust storm, there's dust everywhere, inside and out.  We often feel like we are breathing in dust. (haha, that’s kind of funny replacing the word dust with snow here)

“Cold”
The first dust storm didn’t just bring dust from the north, but it also brought the cold—cold according to West Africans, that is.  We see people walking around selling coats and blankets, and most everyone is wearing long sleeve shirts, jackets, coats, or shawls (the ladies use a panel of fabric which can also be used as a skirt, baby carrier, etc).  To us Americans, it feels amazing to not be sweating all day long!  The temperature gets down to 63F at night, but still up to 93F during the day.  To me, it feels like the beginning of fall and I love it (except for the dust in my nose!).  I love no longer seeing 30 degrees celsius (86F) on my indoor thermometer when I wake up in the morning.  Now it gets down to 25.5 degrees celsius (78F) in the morning, it's fantastic!  Sam's been cold in the mornings even with pants and a long sleeve shirt... he's so African!

Rainy
Our first 3 months here in Dapaong (August, September, & October) were filled with hot and humid, rainy days.  At first it seemed like we’d have a rain storm every afternoon.  I realized this quickly because I’d always be rushing outside to get our clothes off the line before the rains poured down on them.  After a few weeks, the rains seemed to be more sporadic, coming anytime during the day, with a few dry days here and there.

Dry
It hasn’t rained since October and probably won’t rain again until May or June.  November was dry and hot.  The temperatures were higher, but the rain and humidity were gone, so it was bearable.  Along with the rain and humidity, the majority of bugs disappeared!  Don’t get me wrong, we still have plenty of bugs, but at least we don’t have to go around vacuuming up a bazillion flying bugs in the kids’ rooms before they go to bed at night anymore (that’s another story).

Hot
It’s always hot, even when it’s “cold”.  And yet, the heat wave season is yet to come in March!

Holidays

Celebrating holidays isn’t like it used to be.  We used to go to so many fall and winter events in Milwaukee, from Fall festivals and pumpkin patches to Christmas parades and Candy Cane Lane (several blocks of Christmas lights) just to name a few.  Really, we did a lot of activities with our friends in the fall and winter and had so much fun.  It’s not easy to think about these past events while casting aside the desire for what we can’t have.  Yet, it is nice to reflect upon all the good times we had and the good times we will have.

Annual family picture at Candy Cane Lane, December 5, 2014.

Now, we don’t have a lot of decorations nor events to go to which remind us that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner.  In fact I didn’t really think about Thanksgiving until the week of.  On top of zero fall decorations and activities, I didn’t have the cool fall weather to warn me Thanksgiving was coming soon.  It was hotter than ever in November (yet thankfully no longer humid).

I don’t want Advent and Christmas to pass us by, so we are working hard making Advent and Christmas decorations.  Not that we let the other holidays pass us by.  The kids worked hard on their Luther’s seals for Reformation, pumpkins for Halloween, and turkeys for Thanksgiving.

The only part of the house that was decorated for fall was the kids' doors.  That's slowly changing for Advent and Christmas.  (The pictures on their doors are the kids with their Baptismal sponsors at this time last year.)

Now they’ve made an Advent wreath with candles and also ornaments for our Advent tree.  For that, we have an advent calendar with little books that the kids hang on the tree each night during evening prayers.  Yet to come in the next few weeks are a toilet paper roll nativity scene amongst many other crafts.

Right now, Sam is really into cutting and gluing things which is perfect for making decorations for our house (since we did not bring many at all).  We’ve gone through a lot of colored paper and are unfortunately running low.  Hopefully we have enough to make it through all our Christmas crafts.  Thankfully, Sam has learned to be resourceful and color a whole piece of white paper the color he needs for something, such as orange for pumpkins to put all around the house.  White paper is easy enough to find around here; bright colored paper not so much.

So, since we don’t have holiday events to go to (except for the Reformation Celebration at the CLET, which was very nice to have!), we are working hard to remember and celebrate holidays by doing lots of crafts.  Starting new traditions isn’t always easy, but can still be lots of fun.  Our kids aren't phased in the least.  Sam is the only one old enough to remember some of the things we did in Milwaukee thanks to lots of pictures, yet he really enjoys all the crafts now.

Blessings this Advent season as you, too, prepare for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.