Brrrrr! Cold, cold Ghana

My kids are freezing. I blame it on Leslie. We picked her up from the airport on Sunday morning, and on the way back into Tema, she asked me how bad the Harmattan has been. I told her, truthfully, it’s been a non-event. In fact, it was one of the mildest Harmattan’s we’ve had in a long long time. Fast forward to Monday, the Harmattan hits Ghana with all its fury; not to mention dust.

The Harmattan, for those of you not familiar is, according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan, dry and dusty West African trade winds. Believe it or not, the winds carry fine dust particles from the Sahara desert all the way to our shores. I’m not that good in geography, but I’m guessing it’s more than just a few hundred miles away.

Monday morning, we woke up and the Harmattan was waiting for us. It’s not as pretty as a blanket of snow, and you can’t make snow men or snow angels. The dust coats everything – the cars, the windows, the desktops – it’s a constant effort to keep everything clean. The window screens catch the silt, and then when the wind blows hard enough, it blows straight on through.

It’s most noticeable at dawn and dusk, but even during the day it still looks as though you’re moving through a light fog. Cars have their headlights on in the day time – which is actually pretty amazing since the majority of them don’t even switch them on at night!

You can feel the heaviness in the air. Your skin is dry and ashy, your lips are chapped from the constant licking, and your hair is filled with static electricity. Okay, probably only my hair gets this way, but trust me, I know static electricity and it knows me. I’ve been slicking it down with body moisturizer. Not exactly my best look. Now that I think of it, I really don’t have a best look. I have lots of worst looks, but let’s not go there, hmm?

Alex has been complaining of a sore throat since Tuesday, and her eyes have been itching her like mad. She’s also got the snuffles. All likely Harmattan related. I’m waiting for it to clog up my sinuses as it usually does, but since I’m taking allergy pills maybe I’ll be immune.

One thing I’m hoping not to see is what I call “Harmattan eye.” A couple of years ago, I woke up with Harmattan eye; it was all gooked up and puffy and I could hardly open it. Sand must have irritated the inside of my eyelid and I probably rubbed it a lot in my sleep. It didn’t hurt, but it looked horrible. “Oh, Sister Barbara, what happened to your eye?” I heard that one a lot the first two days or so, before the swelling finally went down. Thinking I might never get an opportunity like this again, I quickly put the blame on my husband. If Sly were nearby, I’d jerk my chin in his direction and say sweetly, “Ask him.” I’m lucky “him” didn’t lock me in the house till I was “normal.”

The wind is what really gets you. You can actually hear it, whistling through the alley ways and stirring dried leaves into a frenzy. But the wind is what the old people hate. My 87-year old mother-in-law is probably wrapped up in two cloths. It’s a “cold” wind, alright. I heard a news broadcaster on the television this morning talk about how cold this winter already is. Yes, they call it winter.

It seems we’ve become “real” Ghanaians; my kids are actually wearing long sleeves and jackets, just like the other kids, to school. For them, this is a treat. They long for long pants and shirts. Jeez, they’d be wearing mittens, if I had any.

I’d like to think Leslie jinxed us, but I know it’s just bad timing. Still, if anyone asks me when the Harmattan started, I’ll jerk my chin in her direction and say, “Ask her.”